IV
And did we say that one could ever in any circumstances wish Susan into the dogstar? Alas! poor dear little Susan, she reposes in a raw, ostentatious grave in the Oak Tree Glade with six bulb spikes at the top of the mound. We should like to put a granite stone there with the words: “Here lies Susan, a good dog.” All that was possible was done to save her, and she was the most pathetic, gentle, patient creature; at the very end, seeking blindly with one small paw for her master.
FORBIDDEN TERRITORY
Poor Juvenal was so disconsolate that we did not know what to do. We hit, however, on the happy thought of purchasing a small white Highland Terrier puppy from a litter on sale in the neighbourhood. Bettine ‹thus she has been christened with a fine disregard of local colour› arrived, a dirty, cringing, abject little wretch; but the atmosphere of Villino Loki has wrought so great a change that she is now a perfect imp of mischief and general cheekiness. The Master of the House says she is like a Paris gamin, and that Gavroche is the only name that befits her. The days of cringing are certainly over. Her long ears cocked, her wide mouth derisively open, she defies authority, with attitudes and expressions that can only be transcribed by such remarks as “Pip, Pip,” or the gesture which the French know as Pied-de-nez.
The other dogs at first protested fiercely against this substitute for their beloved Susan even Arabella curling a ferocious lip, and striking out with her fringed paw. But now they have accepted the new comrade with all the generosity of their fine characters. Loki himself makes no objection, except when she ventures upon territory which he regards as peculiarly his own; such as the grand-maternal bedroom.
The month that has taken away the harmless humble life of Juvenal’s fox-terrier, has also brought the news of England’s loss in one of her most gallant sons. He was a friend of the household, and Loki, I am sure, does not forget—for a long memory is one of the Pekinese characteristics—how the South Pole hero played hide-and-seek with him in his puppyhood for a whole hour, one summer’s day, like a very child himself. The family of Villino Loki have memories, too, of that friendship which they valued so highly; and they will always carry the vivid picture of the strong brown face, with the blue eyes that were at once as guileless as a child’s and full of a far-away vision, as if they never ceased to contemplate their high and distant goal. The world is crowded with bumptious people who do nothing at all that is useful, if they do not do harm. Here was a man who had already accomplished mighty achievement and was set on mightier still, and there never was anyone so modest, so anxious to push others forward and keep himself in the background. He was asked by one of us to write a line in an autograph book, and he set down characteristically a tribute to another:
“The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,