“He can have half of my food,” cried Lydia.  “Oh, Lizzie, isn’t he beautiful!”

“Well, no,” replied Lizzie, truthfully.  “He looks to me as if some one had stepped on his face.  You’d better take him out for a run.”

John Levine never did a wiser or a kinder thing than to give the brindle English bulldog to Lydia.  He was a puppy of nine months, well bred and strong.  Lydia took him into her empty little heart with a completeness that belongs to the natural dog lover and that was enhanced by her bereavement.  And he, being of a breed that is as amiable and loyal as it is unlovely to look upon, attached himself unalterably and entirely to Lydia.  She and Kent cast about some time before deciding on a name.  At first they thought seriously of naming him John, after the donor, but decided that this might lead to confusion.  Then they discovered that Levine’s middle name was Adam, and Adam the brindle bull became, forthwith.

Lydia made no objection to returning to the old room.  It had lost its familiar outlines.  And Adam, refusing the quilt on the floor, established himself on the foot of the couch where all night long he snuffled and snored and Lydia, who had objected to Lizzie’s audible slumbers, now, waking with nightmares, heard Adam’s rumbling with a sigh of relief, pressed her feet for comfort against his warm, throbbing body, and went off to sleep immediately.

In May the garden was planted and in June, Lydia graduated from the eighth grade, and the long summer vacation had begun.  Margery Marshall, although Lydia’s age, was not a good student and was two grades below her.  After the episode of the note, Lydia made a conscientious effort to play with Margery at recess and when vacation began, she called for the banker’s daughter regularly every week to go swimming.

Occasionally Elviry would invite her into the house to wait for Margery.  At such times Lydia would stare with wondering delight at the marvels of the quartered oak, plush upholstered furniture, the “Body-Brussels” rugs, and the velour portieres that adorned the parlor.

Outwardly this summer was much like the previous one, except that there was a quiet contentment about Amos in spite of his real mourning for his baby daughter, that had been foreign to him for years.  It was the garden that did this.  Not only was it a wonderful garden to look on and to eat from, but with it Amos paid for milk and butter from the Nortons and for a part of his groceries.  This made possible the year’s interest and payment on the note.

Lydia sewed for Florence Dombey, climbed trees, swam and played pirates with Kent.  But as a matter of fact, the old childish zest for these things had gone.  For Lydia’s real childhood had left her that December night she had spent under the far corner of her father’s bed.  She had not prayed since then.  Her young faith in the kindness and sweetness of life, badly shaken by her mother’s death, had been utterly destroyed when little Patience had been taken from her.