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
councils and expeditions of his fellows. So we let him have his way, and
for a while he seemed happier and stronger for the sunshine, and the old
familiar scents and sounds. But the one little tired husky bark he gave
at his old enemy, the Italian workman, passing by, would have broken
your heart; and the effort he made with a bone, as he visited the
well-remembered neighbourhood of the ice-box for the last time, was
piteous beyond telling. Those sharp, strong teeth that once could bite
and grind through anything could do nothing with it now. To lick it
sadly with tired lips, in a sort of hopeless way, was all that was left;
and there was really a look in his face as though he accepted this
mortal defeat, as he lay down, evidently exhausted with his exertions,
on a bank nearby. But once more his spirit seemed to revive, and he
scrambled to his legs again and wearily crawled to the back of the
house, where the beautiful grandmother loves to sit and look over the
glittering salt-marsh in the summer afternoons.

* * * *