Page:Weird Tales Volume 46 Number 3 (1954-07).djvu/28

WEIRD TALES 26 MONA caught herself up sharply. The coincidence of the dog’s outline happening there times and Ellen’s old-world leprechauns with their dogs to ride had woven a spell over her —that and Yeats’ magic poetry. But she mustn’t be a dreamer as she had been in the part of Maire which she had acted in the play—and never forgotten. She could remember now how when she had sunk to the floor, playing dead, the child having stolen her soul away. She had felt that it would have been worth it to find that land where people were forever young, never to grow old, "to dance upon the mountains like a flame." It would have been worth losing your soul, she had thought.

Then the curtain had fallen and the child was her school mate, Meg, again, and she was Mona, alive and hoping Hal had liked her performance.

He had; that very night he had proposed. "I shouldn’t yet. I’ve got three more years of college, but, after seeing you so ethereal, so beautiful, and so far away, I had to be sure of you. Will you marry me, Mona, when I can support you?"

She would, and they had been married before he had taken his place in his father’s law office. They had been very happy. Their life had been full. They loved each other, had three wonderful children, she had wanted nothing. Yet why did the outline, something more than a shadow, of a dog, make her remember and long for the Land of Heart’s Desire? This was nonsense. She mustn’t even think of it any more. She turned to Ellen. "Get a cloth," she commanded and was ashamed at the edgy tone in her voice, "and mop it up.”

"Yes ma’m,” said Ellen, and then in a sharp tone of surprise, "But it’s all dry—the little dog has gone."

A WEEK after that the dog came. It was a poodle and Carol found it down by the garden gate. She and Meg came running to Mona, the little bunch of black fluff clasped tightly in Meg’s arms.

Out of the chorus of exclamations and requests of "Can we keep him?” Mona gathered that the dog had been sitting by the gate, that it had greeted the children like a long-lost friend, that they already adored it. There was no sign of a collar or license tag. It hadn’t been clipped, and it was adorable. The minute they put it down it capered up to Mona, turned several circles in front of her and then put up one paw, "Like the dog on the rug" Mona thought. She felt strange about the dog, but she had to admit it was captivating. When it jumped up in her arms and cud-