n, and waits for Mr. Beckwith
to go on painting again. Once in awhile, when he feels that Mr. Beckwith
has made a peculiarly happy remark, or an unusually happy stroke of the
brush, Roy applauds tumultuously and loudly with his tail, against the
seat of the bench or the side of the house. Roy has two distinct
wags--the perpendicular and the horizontal; and in his many moments of
enthusiasm he never neglects to use that particular wag which is likely
to make the most noise.

[Illustration: "HE TRIES VERY HARD TO LOOK PLEASANT"]

Roy has many tastes and feelings which are in entire sympathy with those
of his master. He cannot get out of a hammock unless he falls out; and
he is never so miserable as when Mrs. Butts comes over from the Eastkill
Valley to clean house. Mrs. Butts piles all the sitting-room furniture
on the front piazza, and then she scrubs the sitting-room floor, and
neither Roy nor his master, so long as Mrs. Butts has control, can
enter the sitting-room for a bone or a book. And they do not like it,
although they like Mrs. Butts.

Roy has his faults; but his evil, as a rule, is wrought by want of
thought rather than by want of heart. He shows his affection for his
friends by walking under their feet and getting his own feet stepped on,
or by sitting so close to their chairs that they rock on his tail. He
has been known to hold two persons literally spellbound for minutes,
with his tail under the rocker of one chair and both ears under the
rocker of another one. Roy's greatest faults are barking at horses'
heels and running away. This last is very serious, and often it is
annoying; but there is always some excuse for it. He generally runs away
to the Williamsons', which is the summer home of his John and his Sarah;
and where lodges Miss Flossie Burns, of Tannersville, his summer-girl.
He knows that the Williamsons themselves do not want too much of him, no
matter how John and Sarah and Miss Burns may feel on the subject; and he
knows, too, that his own family wishes him to stay more at home; but,
for all that, he runs away. He slips off at every opportunity. He
pretends that he is only going down to the road to see what time it is,
or that he is simply setting out for a blackberry or the afternoon's
mail; and when he is brought reluctantly home, he makes believe that he
has forgotten all about it; and he naps on the top step, or in the
door-way, in the most guileless and natural manner; and then, when
n