A FAREWELL APPEARANCE.
A DOG STORY FOR CHILDREN.
andy, come here, sir; I want you.' The little girl who spoke was standing by the table in the morning-room of a London house one summer day, and she spoke to a small silver-grey terrier lying curled up at the foot of one of the window curtains.
As Dandy happened to be particularly comfortable just then, he pretended not to hear, in the hope that his child-mistress would not press the point.
But she did not choose to be trifled with in this way: he was called more imperiously still, until he could dissemble no longer and came out gradually, stretching himself and yawning with a deep sense of injury.
'I know you haven't been asleep; I saw you watching the flies,' she said. 'Come up here, on the table.'
Seeing there was no help for it, he obeyed, and sat down on the table-cloth opposite to her, with his tongue hanging out and his eyes blinking, waiting her pleasure.
Dandy was rather particular as to the hands he allowed to touch him, but generally speaking, he found it pleasant enough (when he had nothing better to do) to resign himself to be pulled about, lectured, or caressed by Hilda.
She was a strikingly pretty child, with long curling brown locks, and a petulant profile, which reminded one of Mr. Doyle's charming wilful little fairy princesses.