automaton--hadst yet a constant light of thought and of affection in
thine eyes; nor wert thou without some glimmering and mysterious
notions--and what more have we ourselves?--of life and of death! Why
fear to say that thou wert divinely commissioned and inspired--on that
most dismal and shrieking hour, when little Harry Seymour, that bright
English boy, "whom all that looked on loved," entangled among the cruel
chains of those fair water-lilies, all so innocently yet so murderously
floating round him, was, by all standing or running about there with
clenched hands, or kneeling on the sod--given up to inextricable death?
We were not present to save the dear boy, who had been delivered to our
care as to that of an elder brother, by the noble lady who, in her deep
widow's weeds, kissed her sole darling's sunny head, and disappeared. We
were not present--or by all that is holiest in heaven or on earth--our
arms had been soon around thy neck, when thou wert seemingly about to
perish!

But a poor dumb despised dog--nothing, as some say, but animated
dust--was there,--and without shout or signal--for all the Christian
creatures were alike helpless in their despair--shot swift as a sunbeam
over the deep, and by those golden tresses, sinking and brightening
through the wave, brought the noble child ashore, and stood over him, as
if in joy and sorrow, lying too like death on the sand! And when little
Harry opened his glazed eyes, and looked bewildered on all the faces
around--and then fainted--and revived and fainted again--till at last he
came to dim recollection of this world on the bosom of the physician
brought thither with incomprehensible speed from his dwelling afar
off--thou didst lick his cold white hands and blue face, with a whine
that struck awful pity into all hearts, and thou didst follow him--one
of the group--as he was borne along--and frisking and gambolling no more
all that day, gently didst thou lay thyself down at the feet of his
little bed, and watch there unsleeping all night long! For the boy knew
that God had employed one of his lowly creatures to save him--and
beseeched that he might lie there to be looked at by the light of the
taper, till he himself, as the pains went away, might fall asleep! And
we, the watchers by his bedside, heard him in his dreams mentioning the
creature's name in his prayers.

Yet at times--O Fro--thou wert a sad dog indeed--neither to bind nor to
hold--for thy blood was soon