ring eye. I once heard him say:--

"Milady Laura, it is the regret of me life that I came into the world a
generation too soon."

Laura sometimes went away--she called it "going home," but we scoffed
the term--and the doldrums blew until she returned. Sir Tom dined with
us nearly every evening through the fall and early winter; and when he,
and Kate and Tom and the grand-girls, and the Kyrles, and Laura were at
Four Oaks, there was little to be desired. The grand-girls were nearly
five and seven now, and they were a great help to the Headman. My
terrier was no closer to my heels from morning to night than were these
youngsters. They took to country life like the young animals they were,
and made friends with all, from Thompson down. They must needs watch the
sheep as they walked their endless way on the treadmill night and
morning; they thrust their hands into hundreds of nests and placed the
spoils in Sam's big baskets; they watched the calves at their patent
feeders, which deceived the calves, but not the girls; they climbed into
the grain bins and tobogganed on the corn; they haunted the cow-barn at
milking time and wondered much; but the chiefest of their delights was
the beautiful white pig which Anderson gave them. A little movable pen
was provided for this favorite, and the youngsters fed it several times
a day with warm milk from a nursing-bottle, like any other motherless
child. The pig loved its foster-mothers, and squealed for them most of
the time when it was not eating or sleeping; fortunately, a pig can do
much of both. It grew playful and intelligent, and took on strange
little human ways which made one wonder if Darwin were right in his
conclusion that we are all ascended from the ape. I have seen features
and traits of character so distinctly piggish as to rouse my suspicions
that the genealogical line is not free from a cross of _sus scrofa_. The
pig grew in stature and in wisdom, but not in grace, from day to day,
until it threatened to dominate the place. However, it was lost during
the absence of its friends,--to be replaced by a younger one at the next
visit.

"Do _your_ pigs get lost when you are away?" asked No. 1.

"Not often, dear."

"It's only pet pigs that runds away," said No. 2, "and I don't care, for
it rooted me."

The pet pig is still a favorite with the grand-girls, but it always runs
away in the fall.

Kate loved to come to Four Oaks, and she spent so much time there that
she