CHAMBERS'S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH.

The fire burns cheerily on the hearth, the greatlogs crackle and flare up the wide chimney, upwhich it is my wont to say you could drive acoach-and-four. I draw my chair nearer to it witha shiver. 'What a night!' I say.

'Is it still snowing?' asks my wife, who sitsopposite to me, her books and work on the tablebeside her.

'Fast. You can scarcely see a yard before you.'

'Heaven help any poor creature on the moorto-night!' says she.

'Who would venture out? It began snowingbefore dark, and all the people about know thedanger of being benighted on the moor in a snow-storm.'

'Yes. But I have known people frozen todeath hereabouts before now.'

My wife is Scotch, and this pleasant house inthe Highlands is hers. We are trying a winter init for the first time, and I find it excessively coldand somewhat dull. Mentally I decide that infuture we will only grace it with our presenceduring the shooting season. Presently I go to thewindow and look out; it has ceased snowing, andthrough a rift in the clouds I see a star.

'It is beginning to clear,' I tell my wife, andalso inform her that it is past eleven. As shelights her candle at a side-table I hear a whiningand scratching at the front-door.

'There is Laddie loose again,' says she. 'Wouldyou let him in, dear?'

I did not like facing the cold wind, but couldnot refuse to let in the poor animal. Strangelyenough, when I opened the door and called him,he wouldn't come. He runs up to the door andlooks into my face with dumb entreaty; then heruns back a few steps, looking round to see if Iam following; and finally, he takes my coat inhis mouth and tries to draw me out.

'Laddie won't come in,' I call out to my wife.'On the contrary, he seems to want me to go outand have a game of snow-ball with him.'

She throws a shawl round her and comes tothe door. The collie was hers before we weremarried, and she is almost as fond of him, I tellher, as she is of Jack, our eldest boy.

'Laddie, Laddie!' she calls; 'come in, sir.' Hecomes obediently at her call, but refuses to enterthe house, and pursues the same dumb pantomimehe ha

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