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For the new collar was, as you perhaps guessed long ago, a card, and upon it was written, in Daisy’s neatest and plainest round hand:–

I am a very Greedy little Dog, and have Plenty to eat at Home, So please do not give me anything, or I shall have a Fit and die!

You can easily imagine that, when this unlucky Don sat up and begged, bearing this inscription written legibly on his unconscious little chest, the effect was likely to be too much for the gravity of all but very stiff and solemn persons.

Nearly everybody on board the steamer was delighted with him; they pointed out the joke to one another, and roared with laughter, until he grew quite ashamed to sit up any more. Some teased him by pretending to give him something, and then eating it themselves; some seemed almost sorry for him and petted him; and one, an American, said, ‘It was playing it too low down to make the little critter give himself away in that style!’ But nobody quite liked to disobey Daisy’s written appeal.

Poor Don could not understand it in the least; he only saw that every one was very rude and disrespectful to him, and he tried to get away under benches. But it was all in vain; people routed him out from his hiding-places to be introduced to each new comer; he could not go anywhere without being stared at, and followed, and hemmed in, and hearing always that same hateful whisper of ‘Greedy dog–not to be given anything,’ until he felt exactly as if he was being washed!

Poor disappointed greedy dog, how gladly he would have given the tail between his legs to be safe at home in the drawing-room with Miss Millikin and Daisy! How little he had bargained for such a terrible trip as this!

I am sure that if Daisy had ever imagined he would feel his disgrace so deeply she would not have had the heart to send him out with that tell-tale card around his neck; but then he would not have received a very wholesome lesson, and would certainly have eaten himself into a serious illness before the summer ended, so perhaps it was all for the best.

This time Don did not go the whole round of the lake; he had had quite enough of it long before the Cygnet reached Highwood, but he did not get a chance until they came to Winderside, and then, watching his opportunity, he gave his tormentors the slip at last.

* * * * *

Two hours later, as Daisy and her aunt sat sketching under the big holm-oak on the lawn, a dusty little guilty dog stole sneakingly in under the garden-gate. It was Don, and he had run all the way from Winderside, which, though he did not appreciate it, had done him a vast amount of good. ‘Oh!’ cried Daisy, dropping her paint-brush to clap her hands gleefully, ‘Look, Aunt Sophy, he has had his lesson already!’

Miss Millikin was inclined to be shocked when she read the ticket. ‘It was too bad of you, Daisy!’ she said; ‘I would never have allowed it if I had known. Come here, Don, and let me take the horrid thing off.’

‘Not yet, please, auntie!’ pleaded Daisy, ‘I want him to be quite cured, and it will take at least till bedtime. Then we’ll make it up to him.’

But Don had understood at last. It was this detestable thing, then, that had been telling tales of him and spoiling all his fun! Very well, let him find himself alone with it–just once! And he went off very soberly into the shrubbery, whence in a few minutes came sounds of ‘worrying.’

In half an hour Don came out again; his collar was gone, and in his mouth he trailed a long piece of chewed ribbon, which he dropped with the queerest mixture of penitence and reproach at Daisy’s feet. After that, of course, it was impossible to do anything but take him into favour at once, and he was generous enough to let Daisy see that he bore her no malice for the trick she had played him.

What became of the card no one ever discovered; perhaps Don had buried it, though Daisy has very strong suspicions that he ate it as his best revenge.

But what is more important is that from that day he became a slim and reformed dog, refusing firmly to go on board a steamer on any pretence whatever, and only consenting to sit up after much coaxing, and as a mark of particular condescension.

So that Daisy’s experiment, whatever may be thought of it, was at least a successful one.