ly the sun came flaring out, and
we saw behind us thousands and thousands of white gulls dipping,
wheeling, brushing the water with their wings, bewitched with sun and
mist. That was all. And yet that white-winged legion through whom we
had ploughed our way were not, could never be, to me just gulls--there
was more than mere sun-glamour gilding their misty plumes; there was the
wizardry of my past wonder, the enchantment of romance.
1912.

MEMORIES

We set out to meet him at Waterloo Station on a dull day of February--I,
who had owned his impetuous mother, knowing a little what to expect,
while to my companion he would be all original. We stood there waiting
(for the Salisbury train was late), and wondering with a warm,
half-fearful eagerness what sort of new thread Life was going to twine
into our skein. I think our chief dread was that he might have light
eyes--those yellow Chinese eyes of the common, parti-coloured spaniel.
And each new minute of the train's tardiness increased our anxious
compassion: His first journey; his first separation from his mother; this
black two-months' baby! Then the train ran in, and we hastened to look
for him. "Have you a dog for us?"

"A dog! Not in this van. Ask the rearguard."

"Have you a dog for us?"

"That's right. From Salisbury. Here's your wild beast, Sir!"

From behind a wooden crate we saw a long black muzzled nose poking round
at us, and heard a faint hoarse whimpering.

I remember my first thought:

"Isn't his nose too long?"

But to my companion's heart it went at once, because it was swollen from
crying and being pressed against things that he could not see through.
We took him out--soft, wobbly, tearful; set him down on his four, as yet
not quite simultaneous legs, and regarded him. Or, rather, my companion
did, having her head on one side, and a quavering smile; and I regarded
her, knowing that I should thereby get a truer impression of him.

He wandered a little round our legs, neither wagging his tail nor licking
at our hands; then he looked up, and my companion said: "He's an angel!"

I was not so certain. He seemed hammer-headed, with no eyes at all, and
little connection between his head, his body, and his legs. His ears
were very long, as long as his poor nose; and gleaming down in the
blackness of him I could see the same white star that disgraced his
mother's chest.

Picking him up, we carried him to a four-wheeled cab, and took