ories it conjured up! And now to be wrenched away,--sold to supply
Man's humblest, meanest wants,--sold--the last symbol of such a past!
It was indeed "_propter vitam vivendi perdere causas_." He would have
starved rather,--but the child? And then the child rose up and came into
play. She would not suffer such a sacrifice,--she was not hungry,--she
was not weak; and when her voice failed her, she looked up into
that iron face and smiled,--nothing but a smile. Outcame the
pocket-handkerchiefs! The soldier seizes the cross, and turns away. It
shall be sold! As he opens the door, a dog enters gravely,--licks his
hand, approaches the table, raises itself on its hind legs, surveys the
table dolefully, shakes its head, whines, comes to its master, pulls him
by the skirt, looks into his face inquisitively.

What does all this mean? It soon comes out, and very naturally. The dog
belonged to an old fellow-soldier, who had gone to the Isle of France to
claim his share in the inheritance of a brother who had settled and died
there, and who, meanwhile, had confided it to the care of our veteran,
who was then in comparatively easy circumstances, since ruined by the
failure and fraud of a banker to whom he had intrusted his all; and his
small pension, including the yearly sum to which his cross entitled him,
had been forestalled and mortgaged to pay the petty debts which, relying
on his dividend from the banker, he had innocently incurred. The dog's
owner had been gone for months; his return might be daily expected.
Meanwhile the dog was at the hearth, but the wolf at the door. Now, this
sagacious animal had been taught to perform the duties of messenger and
major-domo. At stated intervals he applied to his master for sous, and
brought back the supplies which the sous purchased. He now, as usual,
came to the table for the accustomed coin--the last sou was gone,--the
dog's occupation was at an end. But could not the dog be sold?
Impossible: it was the property of another,--a sacred deposit; one
would be as bad as the fraudulent banker if one could apply to one's own
necessities the property one holds in trust. These little biographical
particulars came out in that sort of bitter and pathetic humour which
a study of Shakspeare, or the experience of actual life, had taught the
Comedian to be a natural relief to an intense sorrow. The dog meanwhile
aided the narrative by his by-play. Still intent upon the sous, he
thrust his nose into his