efly in tail and hair--cocker:
her father being Lord Rutherfurd's famous "Dandie," and her mother the
daughter of a Skye, and a light-hearted Cocker. The Duchess is about the
size and weight of a rabbit; but has a soul as big, as fierce, and as
faithful as had Meg Merrilies, with a nose as black as Topsy's; and is
herself every bit as game and queer as that delicious imp of darkness
and of Mrs. Stowe. Her legs set her long slim body about two inches and
a half from the ground, making her very like a huge caterpillar or hairy
_oobit_--her two eyes, dark and full, and her shining nose, being all of
her that seems anything but hair. Her tail was a sort of stump, in size
and in look very much like a spare foreleg, stuck in anywhere to be
near. Her color was black above and a rich brown below, with two dots of
tan above the eyes, which dots are among the deepest of the mysteries of
Black and Tan.

This strange little being I had known for some years, but had only
possessed about a month. She and her pup (a young lady called _Smoot_,
which means smolt, a young salmon), were given me by the widow of an
honest and drunken--as much of the one as of the other--Edinburgh
street-porter, a native of Badenoch, as a legacy from him and a fee from
her for my attendance on the poor man's death-bed. But my first sight of
the Duchess was years before in Broughton Street, when I saw her sitting
bolt upright, begging, imploring, with those little rough four leggies,
and those yearning, beautiful eyes, all the world, or any one, to help
her master, who was lying "mortal" in the kennel. I raised him, and with
the help of a ragged Samaritan, who was only less drunk than he, I got
Macpherson--he held from Glen Truim--home; the excited doggie trotting
off, and looking back eagerly to show us the way. I never again passed
the Porters' Stand without speaking to her. After Malcolm's burial I
took possession of her; she escaped to the wretched house, but as her
mistress was off to Kingussie, and the door shut, she gave a pitiful
howl or two, and was forthwith back at my door, with an impatient,
querulous bark. And so this is our second of the four; and is she not
deserving of as many names as any other Duchess, from her of Medina
Sidonia downwards?

A fierier little soul never dwelt in a queerer or stancher body; see her
huddled up, and you would think her a bundle of hair, or a bit of old
mossy wood, or a slice of heathery turf, with some red soil