Another favourite amusement of hers was making me look at myself in the glass. I grew used to this before long; but the first time that she set a mirror before me on the ground, I confess that I was a good deal astonished and puzzled. At the first glance, I took the dog in the glass for an enemy and rival, intruding upon my dominions, so I naturally prepared for a furious attack upon him. He appeared equally ready, and I perceived that he was quite my match. But when, after a great deal of barking and violence, nobody was hurt, I fancied that the looking-glass was the barrier which prevented our coming to close quarters, and that my adversary had entrenched himself behind it in the most cowardly manner. Determined that he should not profit by his baseness, I cleverly walked round behind the glass, intending to seize him and give him a thorough shaking; but there I found nothing! I dashed to the front once more; there he stood as fierce as ever. Again behind his battlements--nobody! till after repeated trials, I began to have a glimmering of the state of the case; and feeling rather ashamed of having been so taken in, I declined further contest, and lay down quietly before the mirror to contemplate my own image, and reflect upon my own reflection. Lily took great pains with me; but after all, hers were but minor accomplishments, and I was not allowed to devote my whole attention to mere tricks or amusements. I was not born to be a lap-dog, and it was necessary that I should be educated for the more important business of life. Under my master's careful training, my natural talents were developed, and my defects subdued, till I was pronounced by the best judges to be the cleverest setter in the country. My master himself was a capital sportsman, and I was as proud of him as he was of me. When I had become sufficiently perfect to be his companion, we used to range together untired "over hill, over dale, through bush, through brier," he doing his part and I mine, and bringing home between us such quantities of game as no one else could boast. This was my real business, but it was no less my pleasure. I entered into it thoroughly. To point at a bird immovably till my master's never-failing shot gave the signal for my running to fetch the foolish thing and lay it at his feet, was to my mind the greatest enjoyment and the first object in life. And if anybody should be inclined to despise me on that account, I would beg them to recollect that it was the work given me to do, and I did it well. Can everybody say as much? The causes or the consequences of it, I was not capable of understanding. As to how the birds liked it, that never entered my head. I thought birds were meant to be shot, and I never supposed there was any other use in them.