"Poor little woman!" said Tom Leighton. "Try to feel you have one friend in it. I have two sisters, and it was lonely for me when I left home. Good-by; we shall meet to-morrow." They shook hands, feeling like old friends; and Nixie sat up to shake hands too, though the dignity of his farewell was much damaged by a surreptitious lick of his quick red tongue on Bab's chin.
Tom departed, whistling, to give Nixie the walk the accident had postponed; he found himself seeing, all down the street, a tilted little nose adorned with court-plaster, and brown eyes, wistful like Nixie's. "She's plucky and simple and frank; just the girl to be a fellow's good chum," he thought. "What luck they're coming to the Blackboard!"--Tom's name for his residence.
Bab finished her tasks, and went home with glowing accounts of the little dog who had undone her and the jolly boy who had patched her up.
"There are two nice things in our new home," she said; "and I believe we'll be happy, in spite of fate."
"I don't know where to put another thing," said Mrs. Wyndham, pushing aside a hat-box to sit beside it on the rocker, and casting a despairing glance from the shallow closet, already full, to the floor, covered with the heterogeneous contents of two trunks, in the midst of which Barbara was sitting.
It had been decided that Bab, as the liveliest member of the family, should share her mother's room; and a compact was drawn up solemnly pledging Barbara to keep a sharp lookout for symptoms of "blues" in her mother, and, if necessary, take as vigorous measures against them as the immortal Jerry Cruncher used to prevent his wife "flopping." The Wyndhams had taken possession of their new quarters but two hours earlier, and forceful measures against slight despondency were not considered yet in order.
A scream from the next room prevented Bab replying to her mother, and Nixie bounded through the open door, triumphantly worrying a slipper. He recognized Barbara, and dropped his prize to bestow several rapid kisses on the nose he had been the means of damaging before Bab, from her disadvantage-point on the floor, could stop him.
Tom Leighton appeared immediately behind his dog, calling Nixie with no result, for Bab had her arms around the wriggling black bit of enthusiasm, hugging him hard and begging his master to let him stay.