nd fight
that. He generally gets licked, but what is left of him invariably
swaggers about afterwards under the impression it is the victor. When
he is dead, he will say to himself, as he settles himself in his
grave--"Well, I flatter myself I've laid out that old world at last. It
won't trouble ME any more, I'm thinking."

On this occasion, _I_ took a hand in the fight. It becomes necessary
at intervals to remind Master Smith that the man, as the useful and
faithful friend of dog, has his rights. I deemed such interval had
arrived. He flung himself on to the sofa, muttering. It sounded
like--"Wish I'd never got up this morning. Nobody understands me."

Nothing, however, sobers him for long. Half-an-hour later, he was
killing the next-door cat. He will never learn sense; he has been
killing that cat for the last three months. Why the next morning his
nose is invariably twice its natural size, while for the next week he
can see objects on one side of his head only, he never seems to grasp; I
suppose he attributes it to change in the weather.

He ended up the afternoon with what he no doubt regarded as a complete
and satisfying success. Dorothea had invited a lady to take tea with her
that day. I heard the sound of laughter, and, being near the nursery,
I looked in to see what was the joke. Smith was worrying a doll. I
have rarely seen a more worried-looking doll. Its head was off, and its
sawdust strewed the floor. Both the children were crowing with delight;
Dorothea, in particular, was in an ecstasy of amusement.

"Whose doll is it?" I asked.

"Eva's," answered Dorothea, between her peals of laughter.

"Oh no, it isn't," explained Eva, in a tone of sweet content; "here's
my doll." She had been sitting on it, and now drew it forth, warm but
whole. "That's Dorry's doll."

The change from joy to grief on the part of Dorothea was distinctly
dramatic. Even Smith, accustomed to storm, was nonplussed at the
suddenness of the attack upon him.

Dorothea's sorrow lasted longer than I had expected. I promised her
another doll. But it seemed she did not want another; that was the only
doll she would ever care for so long as life lasted; no other doll could
ever take its place; no other doll would be to her what that doll had
been. These little people are so absurd: as if it could matter whether
you loved one doll or another, when all are so much alike! They have
curly hair, and pink-and-white complexions, big eyes that op