Then it was found true here, as elsewhere, that if there is any lingering remnant of good in the rudest, most brutalised man or dog, a helpless little child will call it forth. Prince, as a rule, hated fondling, but he had some experience of children. Though Jack had been twice Freddy’s age when he appropriated the dog—a strong puppy in the street, Jack had always possessed, more or less, small brothers and sisters, with whom Prince had been on friendly, familiar terms. Prince knew, therefore, that fondlings and sundry other liberties—such as clutching him round the neck, or pulling him by the tail—must be put up with from senseless little children, although no dog of spirit would stand them for a moment from grown-up, rational people. Prince sat like patience on a monument, and permitted Freddy to stroke his bristly hair backwards with hot little hands, or to hold on by his ears, without uttering one note of protest, till Mrs. Miles cried out of her full heart to her husband, “Miles, let us keep the dog ourselves; we’re not so hard up or so near that we’ll miss his bite. We’ve had no cat since poor Kitty was took in the rabbit warren. He may earn something for his living if he can be got to go out and do a turn at ratting for a neighbour at a time. Anyway, he can always watch your dinner till you’re ready, when you carry it with you to your place of work; and he is good to the child. I feel as if dear little Freddy will get well again, and that the dog may bring luck to the house, though he came to it at an unlucky time.” Of course, and very properly, Mr. Miles laughed and scouted at Prince’s bringing luck; and it was not in consequence of any such vain womanish superstition, but because families like Mr. Miles’ are tolerably sure on the whole, and in spite of troubles, to rise in the social scale—just as families like poor Jack’s are as certain to decline, that the occupants of the cottage did begin to prosper from the hour that Prince crossed their threshold. Prince himself knew when he was in good quarters, and showed the knowledge satisfactorily, by continuing to be on his best behaviour, till he commenced to forget his worst, and to be good as if goodness were a second nature to him. He thawed manifestly in his surliness to more than the children, whose trusty play-fellow he was. He showed himself faithful, obedient, attentive, as far as his understanding went, and decently civil and discreet. I wish I could state that Prince became in all respects a superior dog, or at least that he lost his overweening opinion of himself, and became capable of reverencing, at a humble distance, really great dogs—instead of cracking vulgar jokes at their expense, and seeking to drag them down to his own level—or that he even altogether got rid of that lowered moral standard and grave deterioration which he suffered during his stay in Mr. Jerry Noakes’ yard.