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o runs away. They--the boys--are at this moment (ready dressed for church) all lying on their stomachs in various parts of the garden. I am afraid to go out lest I should be shot. Mr. Plornish, says his prayers at night in a whisper lest the cat should overhear him and take offence. The tradesmen cry out as they come up the avenue: '_Me Voici_! _C'est Moi_--_boulanger_--_me tirez pas_, _Monsieur Frenche_!' It is like living in a state of siege, and the wonderful manner in which the cat preserves the character of being the only person not much put out by the intensity of this monomania is most ridiculous. The finest thing is that immediately after I have heard the noble sportsman blazing away at her in the garden in front I look out of my room door into the drawing-room and am pretty sure to see her coming in after the bird, in the calmest manner possible, by the back window." But no harm ever came to "our wonderful little 'Dick,'" who lived to a ripe old age--sixteen years--and was buried under a rose tree at "Gad's Hill." On his return from his last visit to America he wrote a charming account of his welcome home by the dogs at "Gad's Hill." "As you ask me about the dogs, I begin with them. When I came down first I came to Gravesend, five miles off. The two Newfoundland dogs coming to meet me with the usual carriage and the usual driver, and beholding me coming in my usual dress out at the usual door, it struck me that their recollection of my having been absent for any unusual time was at once cancelled. They behaved (they are both young dogs) exactly in their usual manner, coming behind the basket phaeton as we trotted along and lifting their heads to have their ears pulled, a special attention which they received from no one else. But when I drove into the stableyard, 'Linda' was greatly excited; weeping profusely, and throwing herself on her back that she might caress my foot with her great forepaws. Mamie's little dog, too, 'Mrs. Bouncer,' barked in the greatest agitation on being called down and asked: 'Who is this?' tore round me, like the dog in the Faust outlines." My father brought with him, on his return from his first visit to America, a small, shaggy Havana spaniel, which had been given to him and which he had named "Timber Doodle." He wrote of him: "Little doggy improves rapidly and now jumps over my stick at the word of command." "Timber," travelled with us in all our foreign wanderings,
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