e,' was
a true remark I once heard made of one; and yet there is no dog more
devoted to his master, or more gentle to the children of his own
household.

"I remember a little white terrier of my mother's, a celebrated
prize-winner, and of the old Eggesford breed, called 'Spite.' Before I
married she was my special dog, and used to sleep in my room. For years
afterwards, although a general pet, whenever I returned to my old home
she would prefer me to every one else, and, when old and blind, would
toddle up the polished oak staircase to my room, in spite of being
terribly afraid of slipping through the carved bannisters. She never
forgot me or wavered when I was with her in giving me the first place in
her affections.

"I have heard that the first of this noted strain was given many years
ago to my father as a boy by 'Parson Jack.' It seems that the terriers
of Parson Russell were noted in the days when the manners and customs of
the parsons of the West were 'wild and furious.'

"A parson of the 'Parson Froude' type called upon him one evening in the
dusk, to say that he had brought his terrier to fight 'Parson Jack's' in
a match.

"My father's old friend, as I have often heard him tell the story to my
mother, sent down word that he would not fight his dog because he
'looked upon dog-fights as beastly sights,' but if his brother clergyman
would come upstairs, they would clear the tables, and he would take his
jacket off, and they would have some rounds, and see which was the best
man, and he who won should keep the other's dog.

[Sidenote: "Parson Jack"]

"When the fight was fought and won, and when 'Parson Jack' came off
victorious, he claimed the other terrier.

"'And don't yu goe for to think, my dear,' he would add, turning to one
of us children, as he ended the story, and speaking in broad Devonshire,
as he often did when his heart kindled at the memory of the county in
the old days--'don't yu goe for tu think as my having a set-tu zhocked
the people in my parish. My vulk were only plazed to think as parsan was
the best man of the tu, and if a parsan could stand up like a man in a
round in they days, er was all the more likely to zuit 'em in the pulpit
on Zundays.'

"Once every year 'Parson Jack' used to come and dine and sleep at my old
home to keep his birthday, in company with my father and mother. At such
times we as children used to come down to dessert to hear him tell
stories in his racy way of Kat