’Dolph was the cause of it.  ’Dolph at the first notes had lifted his head, unobserved.  Then slowly raising himself on his rheumatic fore-legs, the old dog heaved erect and waddled towards the piano.  Even so no one paid any heed to him until, halting a foot or so from the hem of Tilda’s skirt, he abased his head to the carpet while his hind-legs strained in a grotesque effort to pitch his body over in a somersault.

It was at this that Sir Elphinstone had exclaimed.  Tilda, glancing down sideways across her shoulder, saw and checked a laugh.  She understood.  She let her fingers rest on a crashing chord, and rose from the music-stool as the dog rolled over on his flank.

“’Dolph!  My poor old darling!”

She knelt to him, stretching out her arms.  The candlelight fell on them, and on the sheen of her evening frock, and on the small dark curls clustering on the nape of her bowed neck; and by the same light ’Dolph lifted his head and gazed up at her.  That look endured for five seconds, perhaps; but in it shone more than she could remember, and more than she could ever forget—­a life’s devotion compressed into one last leap of the flame, to expire only with life itself.  As her hands went swiftly down to him, his tongue strove to lick them; but his head fell back, and his spirit went out into whatever darkness the spirits of dead dogs possess.

You know now why Tilda is not riding this morning, why she carries a spade on her shoulder, and why her face on this sunny morning wears a pensive shadow as she gazes back through the orchard trees.  But ’Dolph, the circus mongrel, sleeps among hounds of nobler breed, and shall have a stone as honourable as any.

Now, if you were to look more closely, you might perceive a small stain of green on the front of the homespun skirt otherwise so trim, and might jump to the erroneous conclusion that before leaving the enclosure she had knelt to say a prayer over the snapping of this last tie with her old disreputable life.  It is not precisely Christian, perhaps, to pray over a dog’s grave; but I am pretty sure that Parson Chichester, who has made some tentative openings towards preparing Tilda for Confirmation, would overlook the irregularity, and even welcome it as a foreshadowing of grace.  But Parson Chichester is a discerning man, as well as an honest; and for some reason, although Tilda has long passed the normal age to be prepared for that rite, he has forborne to press her as yet even to be baptised.  It will all come in time, he hopes; but he has a queer soul to deal with.

—­A queer soul, and (as he perceives) a self-respecting one.  If she come to it, she will come in her own time.  So let it be confessed, as a secret she would be extremely annoyed to hear revealed, that she did indeed kneel five minutes since, but with no thought of religion; to try rather, over ’Dolph’s grave, if she could bend her body back in the old acrobatic trick.