My wife had an idea of taking up her sour-milk cure again on the Selisberg by Lake Lucerne, and as I thought mountain air would be good for my impaired health also, we decided to move there at once.  Our project suffered a brief delay through the fatal illness of my dog Peps.  As the result of old age in his thirteenth year, he suddenly exhibited such weakness that we became apprehensive of taking him up the Selisberg, for he could not have borne the fatigue of the ascent.  In a few days his agony became alarmingly acute.  He grew stupid, and had frequent convulsions, his only conscious act being to get up often from his bed (which was in my wife’s room, as he was usually under her care) and stumble as far as my writing-table, where he sank down again in exhaustion.  The veterinary surgeon said he could do no more, and as the convulsions gradually became terribly acute, I was advised to shorten the poor animal’s cruel agony and free him from his pain by a little prussic acid.  We delayed our departure on his account until I at last convinced myself that a quick death would be charity to the poor suffering creature, who was quite past all hope.  I hired a boat, and took an hour’s row across the lake to visit a young doctor of my acquaintance named Obrist, who had, I knew, come into possession of a village apothecary’s stock, which included various poisons.  From him I obtained a deadly dose, which I carried home across the lake in my solitary skiff on an exquisite summer evening.  I was determined only to resort to this last expedient in case the poor brute were in extremity.  He slept that last night as usual in his basket by my bedside, his invariable habit being to wake me with his paws in the morning.  I was suddenly roused by his groans, caused by a particularly violent attack of convulsions; he then sank back without a sound; and I was so strangely moved by the significance of the moment that I immediately looked at my watch to impress on my memory the hour at which my extraordinarily devoted little friend died; it was ten minutes past one on the 10th of July.  We devoted the next day to his burial, and shed bitter tears over him.  Frau Stockar-Escher, our landlady, made over to us a pretty little plot in her garden, and there we buried him, with his basket and cushions.  His grave was shown me many years after, but the last time I went to look at the little garden I found that everything had undergone an elegant transformation, and there were no longer any signs of Pep’s grave.

At last we really started for the Selisberg, accompanied this time only by the new parrot—­a substitute for good old Papo—­from the Kreutzberg menagerie, which I had bought for my wife the year before.  This one was a very good and intelligent bird also, but I left him entirely to Minna, treating him with invariable kindness, but never making a friend of him.  Fortunately for us, our stay in the glorious air of this summer resort, of which we had grown very