The father was at his son's bedside come to that, Will? Oh, what have I when the end came, and as he bent over brought you to?" He bowed his head the poor young fellow-quite un- humbly, and in his slow way made anmanned by this time, baffled, despairing swer: "I'd go through it all again -the last words he heard from the for you, my lass; you're worth it all dying lips were, "Pray God, forgive except when I think of you-and then poor sister Hannah!" Gidlow dashed He turned away his face and his clenched fists into his eyes with all his force. One of those eyes was hopelessly blinded; with the other he saw but imperfectly to the end of his miserable life.

shivered.

Things mended a little from this time a little -a very little. He never complained—he protested he was never hungry. Gradually he sank to be a mere farm laborer, and proved to be a very excellent and trustworthy one; but he was never seen inside the publichouse, and obstinately refused to touch the beer which used to be dealt out by the farmers pretty freely. But those poor children had ravenous appetites, and at last he found himself compelled 6 to take the odious parish allowance which was distributed in the old days, for there were now ten of them; two had died—the neighbors whispered, from actual starvation-shortly after their birth.

Fifteen years! What that household must have gone through during that dreary time, who can imagine?

66 Gant, here's a letter for your mis

Fifteen years had passed since the elopement. During those fifteen years Hannah had brought no less than twelve children into the world; ten were living. She was only in her thirtyfourth year her husband some five years older. When the story of their clandestine marriage became known all Norfolk was virtuously indignant. The farmers there were no large farmers in those days—would have nothing to do with Will; he could get work nowhere. Some of his few friends strongly advised him to leave the neighborhood; but nothing would induce him to stir. From Hannah's side he would never move again. For weeks at a stretch he was left without employment. Once or twice he heard of a place that was vacant for which he knew he was fit. He sus. would trudge off doggedly, make application for it, and get back the same night scarcely able to crawl, and always with the same result. Nothing came. His little savings were exhausted before the second year was ended, and the second child appeared. How they kept body and soul together no one could understand. At last the forlorn condition of the little household stirred the pity of the neighbors, and moved by the sight of the haggard and ragged young man at church, which he never missed attending, some one sent him a new smockfrock. It was laid at his door one night without the sign of who the sender was. He had never worn the laborer's dress till now. Next Sunday he appeared in it, thankful that he could cover what few shreds of clothing hung together upon his lean body. When Hannah saw him first in the smockfrock she broke down. "Has it

That come out o' Yorkshire, that du. You needn't be lookn so skeered, baw; there ain't nothn to pie." The speaker was the village carrier, who brought parcels and letters once a week from Norwich. Gant looked hard at the letter as the bearer held it out to him; he seemed as if he were not going to touch it. "What's up wi' you, man? That ain't pisun. Lay hold on it!" He took it with an evident struggle, without a word of thanks, and went on his way to his work, for it was early morning. When he got home in the evening he laid the letter on the table before his wife, again without a word. With her heart beating fast-for she knew her father's hand- - she broke the seal and read aloud :

"Hannah! Your brother is dead. You spoilt my life, and I swore I would never see you again. I've broken the great oath I took by writing to you as I

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am doing now. Come and humble your- | ther? And this one says he'll never set self as I am humbling myself. Come his eyes upon our little ones. Would and beg my pardon and I'll forgive you, you curse one of them whatever came ? though I cannot forget. You must come Will! you must think very, very ill of alone. The villain that stole you and me. What! I turn my back upon my the children you have brought him I darlings, because he turned his back on will never see. Leave him, and you you and me! For shame, Will ! have my promise that you shall never want again.

Your father,

"SINGLETON GIDLOW."

She laid the letter upon the table, took up the baby that was kicking in her lap, clasped it to her bosom, covered it with kisses, but could not speak for weeping.

Will Gant moved into the tiny bedroom and brought from it a little paper parcel. Deliberately unfolding this, he laid a golden guinea upon the open letter, and for once in his life the words came, clear and decided, with a dignified fluency that his wife had never had experience of before and never heard again.

Another twenty years went by. Gant was right; he and Hannah had seen the worst when old Gidlow's letter arrived. One by one the children all left the nest, and all were off their parents' hands. Indeed, they all married and set up for themselves humbly enough, but honestly. A rumor came that old Gidlow had died "ever so long ago and had left all he had to his widow, then another rumor that Mrs. Gidlow was bedridden and "grown silly." Will Gant got into some position of trust as a buyer of horses. He had the opportunity now of saving money, but unfortunately the chance had come too late. When he died he was hardly sixty, and there were only a score or two of pounds to his credit in the bank. He had a long and trying illness. One night he feebly called his wife: "Hannah! I'm dying now. I want to die with my head against your heart. I'd like to feel it near me, beating for both of us." The desolate woman had been watching him alone for weeks. During that time she had scarcely had her clothes off. Now as she leant back upon the pillow by her husband's side a very swoon of

"That letter, Hannah, is either what the parson calls the voice of God, or else it's a message from the prince of the devils. You may take your choice. I'll never stand in your way this time. He that wrote that letter tossed that guinea to me when I saw him last. If you choose to go to him, it'll pay your way. But if you go, you stay; so help me, God! The little ones and I will hang together; there's something tells me we have seen the worst now. But tell that man from me that we don't drowsiness overcame her, and she fell want forgiveness. If that's the word, let him come here and ask it on his bended knees. If we give him pardon, the babes in the churchyard that pined at your dry breast can't give it him; and if there's a holy God in heaven he won't forgive him neither, till he comes and asks forgiveness here."

He waited for his answer; he did not wait long. She rose, her baby in her arms, and stood face to face with her husband.

"Go, Will? You never spoke a hard word to me before. Do I deserve it now? Go? If staying by your side meant burning flame, I'd never stir a step. Father? Who's my babe's fa

into a deep sleep. There she lay with his head upon her bosom, never stirring till she felt the cold cheek freezing her life's blood. He had been dead for hours.

Clannishness in Norfolk is very strong, and at funerals the family gatherings are often very large. But there were no railways among us fifty years ago, and only three of Hannah's children saw their father laid in his grave. Of the others, some had died and the rest were far away "in the shires." The youngest, who had no family, outstayed the other two; her husband told her she might remain with her mother "a whole fortnight." One day, as the

visit was drawing to its close, the daugh- | was silently undoing her sleeve. Then ter asked, "Did you ever have a sister Jane, mother ?"

66 Yes, I had. What of her ?" "I think she's alive, mother. Leastways there was a sort of a lady that was staying with Farmer Brown last year, and I heard say that she put on parts' a good deal, and folks used to make fun of her. She used to say she was a Gidlow before she married, and they tell me she's a sort of housekeeper in some great house near by. But I never set eyes on her, and I didn't take much notice."

Blood is thicker than water, they say; and when Hannah was left in her loneliness an old woman before her time

she bared her arm; and there was the old scar of the cruel burn, the ineffaceable memorial of the fierce battle of long ago.

"What! Oh! Lord have mercy upon us! Can it be? Why, you're never really my sister Hannah?"

She

She would not stay the night. returned as she came. There is no reason to believe that the sisters ever met again. Hannah did not long survive her husband. His little savings just sufficed to keep her out of the workhouse, but very little more. Once, when some one had the audacity to refer to Hannah's early escapade, hintshe felt a sudden yearning to see her ing at it having been a scandal to be sister, whatever might come of it. She regretted, she fired up fiercely: "Sorry! had never passed a night out of the Who talks of being sorry? I was proud humble cottage to which Will Gant had of the dust he trod on-my Will! I brought her when she was in her teens. never asked you to come and darken Now she resolved to find her sister my door. You may go out of it now Jane. It was a long time before she and never come back. When you're could trace her out. At last she dis-gone there'll be more light to see bycovered that Jane, who had been for you may shut the door behind you several years a widow, was in some position of trust at a great house. "I think it was the Lord of Salisbury's," says my informant vaguely.1 Hannah locked up her house and started on her pilgrimage. After days of travel, which can hardly have improved her appearance, dusty, soiled, and weary, she rang at the bell of the great house and timidly asked to see "Mrs. Jones - Mrs. Jane Jones."

The servants appear to have been insolent, laughed at her, and told her to go away. The old spirit came back upon her, and she proudly protested she would never move from the door till she saw the lady she had a right to see. It ended by the appearance of a dignified personage in black silk, "with a great gold chain round her neck," who received her with immense haughtiness and railed at her roundly.

"Woman! who are you? They say you're my mother - Mother? indeed! You! - Why!

She had been dead a year or two when there appeared in the newspapers an advertisement for the right heirs of Singleton Gidlow. There was a great deal of correspondence, and the lawyers were very busy. I suppose they could not find any entry of the marriage of Will Gant and his wife. Such matters were managed very irregularly in those days, and none of the children could give any information on the point. There were faint remembrances of their parents having kept their wedding day with some semblance of festivity when fortune began to smile upon them in the later years. But Will was always reticent, and as fast as they grew up the family moved off here and there. Hannah never knew what it was to have a daughter who was in any sense a companion to her.

One of the sons a very poor creaMother ture-tried hard to establish his claim to Gidlow's "property," but it all came As she was speaking poor Hannah to nothing. When he died his wife treasured up the rather voluminous

1 I suspect this conjecture was a mere guess, due to the fact that we have heard so much of Lord Correspondence which was carried on, but at last threw it all into the fire.

Salisbury of late.

Whether there is any other possible | interests of dog and man would be conclaimant, or where the estate was situ-flicting, as is still the case where wild ated, I cannot tell.

dogs exist, such as the dingoes of Australia, the dholes of India, and the hyena-like wild dogs of Central and southern Africa.

When I tried to pick up some more scraps of information and fuller particulars, I was repulsed somewhat tartly. "I know my father stole my mother- It must be borne in mind that in dealthat is all I know. But, Lor'! she was ing with these primitive canine creaas bad as he was o' course she was !"tures, the word "dog" is used in its Shocked by the callousness of the re- widest sense, and must include such buff, I asked no more, and shall not animals as wolves and jackals, which ask again. AUGUSTUS JESSOPP. undoubtedly share in the ancestry of our familiar domestic breeds.

From The Contemporary Review. CANINE MORALS AND MANNERS.

It is always interesting to trace the various habits and attributes of our domestic animals which form the bond of their association with us back to their natural origin. In doing so we can hardly fail to reach some suggestive inferences which bear upon our own early history as well as upon that of the animals we study.

Probably the partnership first began through small helpless whelps being brought home by the early hunters, and being afterwards cared for and brought up by the women and children. The indifference with which almost all sayages regard their dogs seem to negative the idea that primitive man took the trouble to tame and train adult wild animals of this kind for his own purposes. The young dog would form one of the family, and would unconsciously regard himself as such. The reason why he should so regard himself will be discussed later when we come to consider the probable canine view of the relationship.

Most of our dumb companions and helpers have become modified by changing circumstances since the partnership began even more than ourselves, and have become partakers with us of the It would soon be found that his huntadvantages and disadvantages of our ing instinct was of use to his captors, for civilization. This is especially so in while wandering abroad with them his the case of the dog, man's closest asso-keen nose would detect the presence of ciate and earliest ally. The many who happily respond to his affectionate and loyal service by regarding him as worthy of the consideration of a valued friend, will, it is hoped, follow with pleasure a few thoughts here put forward which have arisen from a study of the habits that now characterize him as compared with those of his wild relatives.

hidden game when the eyes of his savage masters failed to perceive it; and when a wounded animal dashed away, his speed and instinct for following a trail by scent would often secure what would otherwise have been lost. The dog in his turn would find an easier living and a better shelter while associated with man than if he were hunting on his own account, and thus the compact would be cemented by mutual benefits.

Now let us consider why the dog should so readily fall into the position

We must remember that although the dog is now our friend, with interests in the main in harmony with ours, he was not always so. The wild dog and wild man might have been chance allies of the companion and subordinate of when, for instance, a fatigued quarry pursued by the pack was struck down by a flint weapon, and the greater part of the carcase left to the original hunters; or when a wounded animal escaped its human foe to be followed up and devoured by the dogs. But, as a rule, the

man. What "stock and good-will" did he bring into the partnership besides his swiftness and powers of scenting and seizing his quarry? Let us look for a moment at his life at home as apart from his duties while hunting. In the first place, he evidently regards the

dwelling of his master as his own place | and even dingoes and wolves, learning of abode in which he has certain vested to bark by spontaneous imitation of interests, and, while he is complaisant domestic dogs. Foxes make a noise very and submissive to the regular inhabi- like barking when they challenge one tants, he looks upon strangers of all another among the hills at night, and it kinds with suspicion, and regards their is not difficult to provoke an answer by intrusion as an infringement of his imitating the sound under appropriate rights, or of his rudimentary sense of conditions. It seems probable, therewhat is lawful. Although watch-dogs fore, that the common ancestor of our have doubtless been valued for many domestic dogs and their wild relatives, generations, and their distinctive qual- which no doubt lived under somewhat ities cultivated by artificial selection, it different conditions from any modern seems clear that here we are dealing feral creatures of the kind, was a barkwith an original instinct. ing animal.

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