again; though he still went briskly about his various business on three
legs for several days.

His manner was quite different, however, the afternoon he had so
evidently come home to die. There was no pose about the little forlorn
figure, which, after a mysterious absence of two days, suddenly
appeared, as we were taking tea on the veranda, already the very ghost
of himself. Wearily he sought the cave of the beautiful grandmother's
skirts, where, whenever he had had a scolding, he was wont always to
take refuge--barking, fiercely, as from an inaccessible fortress, at his
enemies.

* * * * *

But, this afternoon, there was evidently no bark in him, poor little
fellow; everything about him said that he had just managed to crawl home
to die. His brisk white coat seemed dank with cold dews, and there was
something shadowy about him and strangely quiet. His eyes, always so
alert, were strangely heavy and indifferent, yet questioning and somehow
accusing. He seemed to be asking us why a little dog should suffer so,
and what was going to happen to him, and what did it all mean. Alas! We
could not tell him; and none of us dare say to each other that our
little comrade in the mystery of life was going to die. But a silence
fell over us all, and the beautiful grandmother took him into her care,
and so well did her great and wise heart nurse him through the night
that next morning it almost seemed as though we had been wrong; for a
flash of his old spirit was in him again, and, though his little legs
shook under him, it was plain that he wanted to try and be up at his
day's work on the veranda, warning off the passer-by, or in the garden
carrying on his eternal investigations, or farther afield in the