ly carry this, that when he
knows he has transgressed rules, he will come and make confession, his
own honesty bringing upon him a punishment he would otherwise have
escaped, or serving to declare what was not previously suspected by those
about him.

But it is when we approach the higher qualities that the dog stands out
in his true light. The best of his class naturally possess these in
greatest perfection, but it is a fact that none are altogether without
them. His instinct, his patience and subservience to the will of his
master, his pluck and his courage, his fidelity that nothing seems
capable of undermining, his trustfulness, his power of sympathy with man
and with his own class, and, lastly, the touching and infinite depth of
his love--all these are characteristics that occasionally put man to
shame, but which make man always trust him more and more. In the face of
his marvellous instinct, man is not infrequently struck dumb as he
watches. A dog's patience is a thing to study, as well as one from which
to learn many a fair lesson. His pluck and courage are almost proverbial.
In many a case the odds against him seem not to make the slightest
difference: he will fight on to the end; let his master only lead, he
will follow to the death.

And it is here that his fidelity attains its very pinnacle. Faithful unto
death! Again and again, in innumerable instances, he has shown his
faithfulness long after the one he loved was dead. The dog in the
mediaeval legend that dug his master's grave, covered him with moss and
leaves, and then watched there for seven years, until he died himself,
has found many a parallel in real life. A well-known dog in the days of
the Stewarts was still beside his master's tomb three years after the
latter's death; and, in much later times, another dog, at Lisle, refused
to come away from the spot where his master lay, and remained on guard
for nine long years, the villagers recognising his fidelity by building
him a kennel and bringing him his daily food until he died.

And if an instance of the exhibition of grief on the part of a dog is
called for, some will remember the little dog in the far-away Sudan. He
was the property of the only officer that fell at Ginnis, and who had
been in the habit of taking him everywhere. When his master was consigned
to the sand, this dog was seen to be cowering beside the stretcher,
looking even smaller than before; and, when all was over, he had to be
li