to say something more than
usual--to confide a trouble, to confess!

We went up into the big music-room, which was still lighted, and lay
on a couch together; he, with his head on my knees, whimpering
softly as I smoked and read a paper.

Presently Leah came in and said:

"Such an unfortunate thing happened; Marty and Chucker-out were
playing on the slope, and he knocked her down and sprained her
knee."

As soon as Chucker-out heard Marty's name he sat up and whined
piteously, and pawed me down with great violence; pawed three
buttons off my waistcoat and broke my watch-chain--couldn't be
comforted; the misadventure had been preying on his mind for
hours.

I give this subject to Mr. Briton Riviere, who can paint both dogs and
children, and everything else he likes. I will sit for him myself, if he
wishes, and as a Catholic priest! He might call it a confession--and an
absolution! or, "The Secrets of the Confessional."

The good dog became more careful in future, and restrained his
exuberance even going down-stairs with Marty on the way to a ramble
in the woods, which excited him more than anything; if he came
down-stairs with anybody else, the violence of his joy was such that
one had to hold on by the banisters. He was a dear, good beast, and
a splendid body-guard for Marty in her solitary woodland
rambles--never left her side for a second. I have often watched him
from a distance, unbeknown to both; he was proud of his
responsibility--almost fussy about it.

I have been fond of many dogs, but never yet loved a dog as I loved
big Chucker-out--or _Choucroute_, as Coralie, the French maid,
called him, to Fraeulein Werner's annoyance (Choucroute is French for
sauerkraut); and I like to remember him in his splendid prime,
guarding his sweet little mistress, whom I loved better than
anything else on earth. She was to me a kind of pet Marjorie, and
said such droll and touching things that I could almost fill a book
with them. I kept a diary on purpose, and called it Martiana.

She was tall, but lamentably thin and slight, poor dear, with her
mother's piercing black eyes and the very fair curly locks of her
papa--a curious and most effective contrast--and features and a
complexion of such extraordinary delicacy and loveliness that it
almost gave one pain in the midst of the keen pleasure one had in
the mere looking at her.

Heavens! how that face would light up suddenly at catching the
unexpected sight of some