hip were given to
Jess; and off went the three.

Bob and I buried the Game Chicken that night (we had not much of a tea)
in the back-green of his house in Melville street, No. 17, with
considerable gravity and silence; and being at the time in the Iliad,
and, like all boys, Trojans, we called him Hector of course.

* * * * *

Six years have passed--a long time for a boy and a dog: Bob Ainslie is
off to the wars; I am a medical student, and clerk at Minto House
Hospital.

Rab I saw almost every week, on the Wednesday; and we had much pleasant
intimacy. I found the way to his heart by frequent scratching of his
huge head, and an occasional bone. When I did not notice him he would
plant himself straight before me, and stand wagging that bud of a tail,
and looking up, with his head a little to the one side. His master I
occasionally saw; he used to call me "Maister John," but was laconic as
any Spartan.

One fine October afternoon, I was leaving the hospital when I saw the
large gate open, and in walked Rab with that great and easy saunter of
his. He looked as if taking general possession of the place; like the
Duke of Wellington entering a subdued city, satiated with victory and
peace.

After him came Jess, now white from age, with her cart; and in it a
woman, carefully wrapped up--the carrier leading the horse anxiously,
and looking back.

When he saw me, James (for his name was James Noble) made a curt and
grotesque "boo," and said, "Maister John, this is the mistress; she's
got a trouble in her breest--some kind of an income we'er thinkin'."

By this time I saw the woman's face; she was sitting on a sack filled
with straw, her husband's plaid round her, and his big-coat, with its
large white metal buttons, over her feet.

I never saw a more unforgettable face--pale, serious, _lonely_,
delicate, sweet, without being at all what we call fine. She looked
sixty, and had on a mutch, white as snow, with its black ribbon; her
silvery, smooth hair setting off her dark-gray eyes--eyes such as one
sees only twice or thrice in a lifetime, full of suffering, full also of
the overcoming of it; her eyebrows black and delicate, and her mouth
firm, patient, and contented, which few mouths ever are.

As I have said, I never saw a more beautiful countenance, or a more
subdued or settled quiet. "Ailie," said James, "this is Maister John,
the young doctor; Rab's freend, ye ken. We often speak abo