I am sorry to say I can make no such assertion. On the contrary, it was a great shock to Mrs. Miles, who was pre-eminently an honest woman, to discover that Prince—fairly to be relied upon at home—could not come within a hundred yards of the baker’s and butcher’s shops in the village without undergoing a distressing transformation. He would slip away from his mistress’ side, if he happened to be out marketing with her, dodge about with an evident disreputable assumption of an incognito, for he was but a fifth-rate actor after all, till he saw his opportunity, then improve it by darting to the scene of action, seizing the coveted twopenny loaf or sheep’s liver, though he had made an excellent breakfast that very morning, and making off with it like the wind. It was to no purpose that he was pursued, convicted, punished; the next time temptation met him, he fell without fail, repeating the offence. It was as if the temptation, once habitually indulged in, had become irresistible to poor stupid Prince. Mrs. Miles had a struggle whether she ought to keep a dog with such a disgraceful propensity, and one day she was very nearly giving him up, when by his gross self-indulgence he covered not only her but his master with ridicule and shame. It was on a Sunday at noon, of all times, but Mrs. Miles had not been to church—she had sat up, the night before, with a sick neighbour. She had carried the younger child with her on her errand of mercy, while Mr. Miles had taken care of the elder, and been at church with him, leaving Prince to keep house, which he did with sufficient uprightness, in the family’s absence. Mr. Miles had gone home when the service was over, and liberated the dog, permitting him to join the little party, in their Sunday clothes, that set out to meet and greet the wife and mother on her expected return. Mrs. Miles had appeared duly, and been gratified by her husband’s attention. The group were proceeding in the most exemplary and agreeable fashion along the village street, when the heads of the household were startled by the nudges and sniggles, rising into roars of laughter, which their progress drew forth—not only from the loiterers about the ale-house door, but from the more decorous passers-by, carrying home their Sunday’s dinner from the baker’s oven. Mrs. Miles glanced round indignantly at her husband and two children, and could discover nothing—unless a pleasing picture of domestic felicity, which ought to have excited admiration or envy, not contempt—to account for the derision with which even some of her own particular friends were regarding the family, till she looked behind her, and then Mrs. Miles saw it all.