Rose's hunting-whip being
passed through his collar to restrain erratic propensities. The
particular point of instruction which now made poor Pat hang out his
tongue, and agitate his crisp brown curls, was the performance of the
'down-charge'; a ceremony demanding implicit obedience from the animal in
the midst of volatile gambadoes, and a simulation of profound repose when
his desire to be up and bounding was mighty. Pat's Irish eyes were
watching Rose, as he lay with his head couched between his forepaws in
the required attitude. He had but half learnt his lesson; and something
in his half-humorous, half-melancholy look talked to Rose more eloquently
than her friend Ferdinand at her elbow. Laxley was her assistant
dog-breaker. Rose would not abandon her friends because she had accepted
a lover. On the contrary, Rose was very kind to Ferdinand, and perhaps
felt bound to be so to-day. To-day, also, her face was lighted; a
readiness to colour, and an expression of deeper knowledge, which she now
had, made the girl dangerous to friends. This was not Rose's fault but
there is no doubt among the faculty that love is a contagious disease,
and we ought not to come within miles of the creatures in whom it lodges.

Pat's tail kept hinting to his mistress that a change would afford him
satisfaction. After a time she withdrew her wistful gaze from him, and
listened entirely to Ferdinand: and it struck her that he spoke
particularly well to-day, though she did not see so much in his eyes as
in Pat's. The subject concerned his departure, and he asked Rose if she
should be sorry. Rose, to make him sure of it, threw a music into her
voice dangerous to friends. For she had given heart and soul to Evan, and
had a sense, therefore, of being irredeemably in debt to her old
associates, and wished to be doubly kind to them.

Pat took advantage of the diversion to stand up quietly and have a shake.
He then began to kiss his mistress's hand, to show that all was right on
both sides; and followed this with a playful pretence at a bite, that
there might be no subsequent misunderstanding, and then a bark and a
whine. As no attention was paid to this amount of plain-speaking, Pat
made a bolt. He got no farther than the length of the whip, and all he
gained was to bring on himself the terrible word of drill once more. But
Pat had tasted liberty. Irish rebellion against constituted authority was
exhibited. Pat would not: his ears tossed over his