his was by winking first one eye and then
the other, and making his cheeks rise and fall in a way so droll that I
could not help laughing, at which Nip seemed to take offence, for without
waiting for any farther questions he hopped out of the room, and I saw
him, soon after, crawling softly up the hill, as if on the look out for
some of the thieves Sir John had spoken of.

I, too, went off upon the watch. I took my way along the bank, I glided
among the bushes, ran after a young fox whose sharp nose I spied pointed
up a tree, but without catching him, and finally returned to my new home
by the opposite direction. Nip came in shortly after, and we sat down to
our dinner.

Although this portion of my life was, perhaps, the happiest I have ever
known, it has few events worth relating. The stormy scenes which are so
painful to the dog who suffers them, are those which are most interesting
to the hearer; while the quiet days, that glide peacefully away, are so
like each other, that an account of one of them is a description of many.
A few hours can be so full of action, as to require volumes to describe
them properly, and the history of whole years can be written on a single
page.

I tried, as I became fixed in my new position, to do what I had resolved
when I entered it; namely, my duty. I think I succeeded; I certainly
obtained my master's praise, and sometimes my own; for I had a habit of
talking to myself, as Nip so rarely opened his mouth, and would praise or
blame myself just as I thought I deserved it. I am afraid I was not
always just, but too often said, "Well done, Job; that's right, Job;"
when I ought to have called out, "You're wrong, Job; you ought to feel,
Job, that you're wrong;" but it is not so easy a thing to be just, even
to ourselves.

One good lesson I learned in that little cottage, which has been of use
to me all my life through; and that was, to be very careful about judging
dogs by their looks. There was old Nip: when I first saw him, I thought I
had never beheld such an ugly fellow in my life, and could not imagine
how anything good was to be expected from so cross a looking, ragged old
hound. And yet nothing could be more beautiful, more loveable than dear
old Nip, when you came to know him well. All the misfortunes he had
suffered, all the knocks he had received in passing through the world,
seemed to have made his heart more tender; and he was so entirely
good-natured, that in all the time we