." But it did do. We left Duchie that very night, and
though she paid us frequent visits, she was Cousin Susan's for life. I
fear indulgence dulled her moral sense. She was an immense happiness to
her mistress, whose silent and lonely days she made glad with her oddity
and mirth. And yet the small creature, old, toothless, and blind,
domineered over her gentle friend--threatening her sometimes if she
presumed to remove the small Fury from the inside of her own bed, into
which it pleased her to creep. Indeed, I believe it is too true, though
it was inferred only, that her mistress and friend spent a great part of
a winter night in trying to coax her dear little ruffian out of the
centre of the bed. One day the cook asked what she would have for
dinner: "I would like a mutton chop, but then, you know, Duchie likes
minced veal better!" The faithful and happy little creature died at a
great age, of natural decay.

* * * * *

But time would fail me, and I fear patience would fail you, my reader,
were I to tell you of CRAB, of JOHN PYM, of PUCK, and of the rest. CRAB,
the Mugger's dog, grave, with deep-set, melancholy eyes, as of a
nobleman (say the Master of Ravenswood) in disguise, large visaged,
shaggy, indomitable, come of the pure Piper Allan's breed. This Piper
Allan, you must know, lived some two hundred years ago in Cocquet Water,
piping like Homer, from place to place, and famous not less for his dog
than for his music, his news and his songs. The Earl of Northumberland,
of his day, offered the piper a small farm for his dog, but after
deliberating for a day Allan said, "Na, na, ma Lord, keep yir ferum;
what wud a piper do wi' a ferum?" From this dog descended Davidson of
Hyndlee's breed, the original Dandie-Dinmont, and Crab could count his
kin up to him. He had a great look of the Right Honorable Edward Ellice,
and had much of his energy and _wecht_; had there been a dog House of
Commons, Crab would have spoken as seldom, and been as great a power in
the house, as the formidable and faithful time-out-of-mind member for
Coventry.

JOHN PYM was a smaller dog than Crab, of more fashionable blood, being a
son of Mr. Somner's famous SHEM, whose father and brother are said to
have been found dead in a drain into which the hounds had run a fox. It
had three entrances: the father was put in at one hole, the son at
another, and speedily the fox bolted out at the third, but no appearance
of