a, who in an earlier chapter once trotted
across a lawn, and who had lately been promoted to sleeping upon Jenny's
bed, awoke suddenly that night and growled a low breathy remonstrance.
He had been abruptly kicked from beneath the bedclothes.

"Get off, you heavy little beast," said a voice in the darkness.

Lama settled himself again with a grunt, half of comfort, half of
complaint.

"_Get off!_" came the voice again, and again his ribs were heaved at by
a foot.

He considered it a moment or two, and even shifted nearer the wall,
still blind with sleep; but the foot pursued him, and he awoke finally
to the conviction that it would be more comfortable by the fire; there
was a white sheepskin there, he reflected. As he finally reached the
ground, a scratching was heard in the corner, and he was instantly
alert, and the next moment had fitted his nose, like a kind of
india-rubber pad, deep into a small mouse-hole in the wainscoting, and
was breathing long noisy sighs down into the delicious and
gamey-smelling darkness.

"Oh! be quiet!" came a voice from the bed.

Lama continued his investigations unmoved, and having decided, after one
long final blow, that there was to be no sport, returned to the
sheepskin with that brisk independent air that was so characteristic of
him. He was completely awake now, and stood eyeing the bed a moment,
with the possibility in his mind that his mistress was asleep again,
and that by a very gentle leap--But a match was struck abruptly, and he
lay down, looking, with that appearance of extreme wide-awakedness in
his black eyes that animals always wear at night, at his restless
mistress.

He could not quite understand what was the matter.

First she lit a candle, took a book from the small table by the bed and
began to read resolutely. This continued till Lama's eyes began to blink
at the candle flame, and then he was suddenly aware that the light was
out and the book closed, and all fallen back again into the clear gray
tones which men call darkness.

He put his head down on his paws, but his eyebrows rose now and again as
he glanced at the bed.

Then the candle was lighted again after a certain space of time, but
this time there was no book opened. Instead, his mistress took her arms
out of bed, and clasped them behind her head, staring up at the
ceiling....

This was tiresome, as the light was in his eyes, and his body was just
inert enough with sleep to make movement someth