t me
and ground her little teeth together. A curious shrill noise came
from her, like the screaming of a gnat or hoverfly; but no words,
never any words. Bran showed me his teeth too, and would not look at
me. It was very odd.

[Footnote 5: "I have sometimes thought," he adds in a note, "that it
may have been jealousy. My wife had been with me in the garden and had
stuck a daffodil in my coat."]

"When I looked in, on my return home, she was as merry as usual, and
as affectionate. I think she had no memory.

"I am trying to give all the particulars I was able to gather from
observation. In some things she was difficult, in others very easy to
teach. For instance, I got her to learn in no time that she ought to
wear her clothes, such as they were, when I was with her. She
certainly preferred to go without them, especially in the sunshine;
but by leaving her the moment she slipped her frock off I soon made
her understand that if she wanted me she must behave herself according
to my notions of behaviour. She got that fixed in her little head, but
even so she used to do her best to hoodwink me. She would slip out one
shoulder when she thought I wasn't looking, and before I knew where I
was half of her would be gleaming in the sun like satin. Directly I
noticed it I used to frown, and then she would pretend to be ashamed
of herself, hang her head, and wriggle her frock up to its place
again. However, I never could teach her to keep her skirts about her
knees. She was as innocent as a baby about that sort of thing.

"I taught her some English words, and a sentence or two. That was
toward the end of her confinement to the kennel, about March. I used
to touch parts of her, or of myself, or Bran, and peg away at the
names of them. Mouth, eyes, ears, hands, chest, tail, back, front: she
learned all those and more. Eat, drink, laugh, cry, love, kiss, those
also. As for kissing (apart from the word) she proved herself to be an
expert. She kissed me, Florrie, Bran, Strap indifferently, one as soon
as another, and any rather than none, and all four for choice.

"I learned some things myself, more than a thing or two. I don't mind
owning that one thing was to value my wife's steady and tried
affection far above the wild love of this unbalanced, unearthly little
creature, who seemed to be like nothing so much as a woman with the
conscience left out. The conscience, we believe, is the still small
voice of the Deity crying to us in