We have family prayers at home, and have had them ever since we were quite little things.  What an ordeal they used to be too!  We used to be watched so strictly, and the moment our eyes wavered from our books, attention would at once be drawn to the culprits and cover them with confusion.  Woe be to him, too, who forgot to turn over the leaf of his book with the rest!  It is such an unkind thing to do to print all the books alike.  If you forget and turn over later, you are at once detected.  Being sharp children, however, we used to make this our first care, so that whatever we were doing—­laughing, pinching, winking, our pages all went over together, so we sounded attentive.

Our little dog was even more cunning than ourselves.  He was never permitted, on any plea, to lie before the fire.  “It enlarged his liver,” his master said.  Now this decree is a great deprivation to dogs.  They like warmth and comfort just as much as we do; indeed, they love the fire to such an extent that if all the terrors of Hades were put before them, they would by no means have a salutary effect.  The dogs would try to be as naughty as possible in the hopes of getting there.

But this particular little animal was made of most obstinate materials, and had no intention of being baulked; so directly we knelt down for prayers, he scrambled from under the table, and stretched his full length before the fire.  He knew he would not be spoken to until we had finished, and felt quite safe until we all joined in the Lord’s Prayer at the end, when he would immediately decamp, and thus escape any scolding for his disobedience.  It was more especially clever of him because we all joined in the Confession as well, but he never took any notice of that, and always put off his departure until the last minute.

We had this dog twelve years altogether, and a sad night it was, indeed, when he had a fit and died.  The breakfast-table next morning presented a most distressing spectacle.  We were all positively swimming in tears.  The whole family was upset at his death; and when, later on in the day, he was wrapped up in a fish basket and buried in the garden, next door to a favorite rabbit—­on whose grave a cabbage had been planted, most unkindly reminding him of the sweets of life he had left behind—­we all lifted up our voices and wept again.

I often wonder if we shall meet our faithful dumb friends hereafter!  Sages say no; but I cannot believe they are so entirely blotted out, and like to think they have some happy sugary existence somewhere, and that we shall see them again some day.

Dogs are very human after all; they have a great many of our virtues and nearly all our vices.  I expect it is this that endears them to us, for “One touch of nature makes all the world kin.”  They are just as contradictory, as disappointing, as ourselves.  Why will they always show off to such bad advantage?  After spending weeks in teaching them, and fortunes on pieces of sugar, why, before an audience, will they insist on ringing the bell when they are told to shut the door? and when you ask them to sit up and beg, why do they die for the Queen?