n but for a few days,
the children came crowding and clinging round me, declaring that it
seemed like weeks since I left them. The doctor himself was, as usual,
exuberant, and his wife extremely kind. Miss Blythe, I found, had not
yet returned, and was not expected for some time.

But the reception accorded me by the doctor and his family was as
nothing to the wild welcome lavished upon me by Dumps. That loving
creature came more nearly to the bursting-point than I had ever seen him
before. His spirit was obviously much too large for his body. He was
romping with the McTougall baby when I entered. The instant he heard my
voice in the hall he uttered a squeal--almost a yell--of delight, and
came down the two flights of stairs in a wriggling heap, his legs taking
comparatively little part in the movement. His paws, when first applied
to the wax-cloth of the nursery floor, slipped as if on ice, without
communicating motion. On the stairs, his ears, tail, head, hair, heart,
and tongue conspired to convulse him. Only when he had fairly reached
me did the hind-legs do their duty, as he bounced and wriggled high into
air. Powers of description are futile; vision alone is of any avail in
such a case. Are dogs mortal? Is such overflowing wealth of affection
extinguished at death? Pshaw! thought I, the man who thinks so shows
that he is utterly void of the merest rudiments of common sense!

I did not mention the object of my visit to York to the doctor or his
wife. Indeed, that natural shyness and reticence which I have found it
impossible to shake off--except when writing to you, good reader--would
in any case have prevented my communicating much of my private affairs
to them, but particularly in a case like this, which seemed to be
assuming the aspect of a wildly romantic hunt after a lost young girl,
more like the plot of a sensational novel than an occurrence in
every-day life.

It may be remarked here that the doctor had indeed understood from Mrs
Willis that she had somehow lost a granddaughter; but being rather fussy
in his desires and efforts to comfort people in distress, he had failed
to rouse the sympathy which would have drawn out details from the old
woman. I therefore merely gave him to understand that the business
which had called me to the north of England had been unsuccessful, and
then changed the subject.

Meanwhile Dumps returned to the nursery to resume the game of romps
which I had interru