or my cries, making down to the inn and her mistress, a hairy hurricane. I walked on to see what it was, and there in the same spot as last night, in the bank, was a real dog — no mistake; it was not, as the day before, a mere surface or spectrum, or ghost of a dog; it was plainly round and substantial; it was much developed since eight P. M. As I looked, it moved slightly, and as it were by a sort of shiver, as if an electric shock (and why not?) was being administered by a law of na ture; it had then no tail, or rather had an odd amorphous look in that region; its eye, for it had one-it was seen in profile looked to my profane vision like (why not actually?) a huge blaeberry (vaccinium Myrtillus, it is well to be scientific) black and full; and I thought,— but dare not be sure, and had no time or courage to be minute,- that where the nose should be, there was a small shining black snail, probably the Limax niger of M. de Férussac, curled up, and if you look at any dog's nose you will be struck with the typical resemblance, in the corrugations and moistness and jetty blackness of the one to the other, and of the other to the one. He was a strongly-built, wiry, bandy, and short-legged dog. As I was staring upon him, a beam – Oh, first creative beam! sent from the sun

as he looked over Benvorlich's shoulder, and piercing a cloudlet of mist which clung close to him, and filling it with whitest radiance, struck upon that eye or berry, and lit up that nose or snail: in an instant he sneezed (the nisus (sneezus?) formativus of the ancients); that eye quivered and was quickened, and with a shudder

such as a horse executes with that curious muscle of the skin, of which we have a mere fragment in our neck, the Platysma Myoides, and which doubtless has been lessened as we lost our distance from the horse-type – which dislodged some dirt and stones and dead heather, and doubtless endless beetles, and, it may be, made some near weasel open his other eye, up went his tail, and out he came, lively, entire, consummate, warm, wagging his tail, I was going to say like a Christian, I mean like an ordinary dog. Then flashed upon me the solution of the Mystery of Black and Tan in all its varieties: the body, its upper part gray or black or yellow according to the upper soil and herbs, heather, bent, moss, &c.; the belly and feet, red or tan or light fawn, according to the nature of the deep soil, be it ochrey, ferruginous, light clay, or comminuted mica slate. And wonderfullest of all, the DOTS of TAN above the eyes and who has not noticed and wondered as to the philosophy of them? I saw made by the two fore feet, wet and clayey, being put briskly up to his eyes as he sneezed that genetic, vivifying sneeze, and leaving their mark, forever.

He took to me quite pleasantly, by virtue of “natural selection," and has accompained me thus far in our "struggle for life," and he, and the S. Q. N., and the Duchess, and the Maid, returned that day to Crieff, and were friends all our days. I was a little timid when he was crossing a burn lest he should wash away his feet, but he merely colored the water, and every day less and less, till in a fortnight I could wash him without fear of his becoming a solution, or fluid extract of dog, and thus resolving the mystery back into itself.

The mare's days were short. She won the Consolation Stakes at Stirling, and was found dead next morn

ing in Gibb's stables.

The Duchess died in a good old age, as may be seen in the history of "Our Dogs." The S. Q. N., and the parthenogenesic earth-born, the Cespes Vivus whom we sometimes called Joshua, because he was the Son of None (Nun), and even Melchisedec has been whispered, but only that, and FitzMemnon, as being as it were a son of the Sun, sometimes the Autochthon avτóx@oros; (indeed, if the relation of the coup de soleil and the blaeberry had not been plainly causal and effectual, I might have called him Filius Gunni, for at the very moment of that shudder, by which he leapt out of non-life into life, the Marquis's gamekeeper fired his rifle up the hill, and brought down a stray young stag,) these two are happily with me still, and at this moment she is out on the grass in a low easy-chair, reading Emilie Carlen's Brilliant Marriage, and Dick is lying at her feet, watching, with cocked ears, some noise in the ripe wheat, possibly a chicken, for, poor fellow, he has a weakness for worrying hens, and such small deer, when there is a dearth of greater. If any, as is not unreasonable, doubt me and my story, they may come and see Dick. I assure them he is well worth seeing.

HER LAST HALF-CROWN.

Once I had friends — though now by all forsaken;
Once I had parents — they are now in heaven.

I had a home once

Worn out with anguish, sin, and cold, and hunger,
Down sunk the outcast, death had seized her senses.
There did the stranger find her in the morning-

God had released her.

SOUTHEY.