In moments of utter bereavement who has not felt, to the heart's core, the tender attachment of a faithful dog? It is only when overwhelmed with sorrow and forsaken by the world, that we know how to value the humble love that abides with us till death.
"Poor brute," sighed Dorothy, patting his shaggy head, "we have had many happy days together, old dog, and I meant to take care of you and cherish you as long as you lived, but it seems that we must part. Go home, Pincher. Go home, sir. It is not lucky for anything to love me."
Pincher had no idea of going home. For once the dear familiar voice commanded in vain. The old dog stuck to her like a burr, and she had not the heart to take up a stick to enforce obedience. So the twain walked on very lovingly together, Dorothy gazing sadly and fondly at every well-known object in her path.
The brook babbled to her like an old friend; the blue harebells nodded their heads in the breeze, and silently seemed to say good-bye. She gathered a bunch of the lovely flowers, and hid them away, on her bosom, to remind her, when far away, of all she had loved and lost.
Crossing the heath, her pathway lay near the spot where she had been found, clinging to the bosom of her dead mother. She turned off the road to look at it. The golden furze bushes glowed as brightly and smelt as sweetly in the morning air, as when Lawrence Rushmere first lifted her up from her cold bed of wet heather.
She had often visited the spot before. Now, it seemed invested with a peculiar interest. Like that unknown mother, she too had become a houseless wanderer, seeking for a home and shelter from a hard unfeeling world.
"Poor mother," she thought, "in my days of careless happiness, how little I thought of you,—still less could I comprehend the sorrow that crushed the life out of your heart. Now I feel—I understand it all. Shall I never know your sad history, or who was my father? It hardly ever struck me before, that I must have had a father. Who? and what was he? Is he living or dead? Oh, shall I ever, ever solve the cruel mystery?"
A chill seemed to strike through her. She checked these useless inquiries; they gave rise to painful and humiliating conjectures. It was better, perhaps, that she should never be enlightened, and drying her tears, she regained the path across the heath and hurried on.