To her horror, Mrs. Miles found that Prince was scouring along close to heel, bearing a whole roast duck by his teeth in its back. He had been unable to pass the baker’s door, though the shutter was on the window: having entered, his nose had beguiled him into a more daring and serious crime than the petty pilfering which was the usual extent of his delinquencies. And Mrs. Miles could not create the scandal on the Sunday, with the parson coming out of the rectory at her back, of having the dog pursued and deprived of his prey. That night, while Mr. Miles—though he had not liked the laugh when it was sounding in his ears any better because he had often raised such himself—after he had escaped the cackle, took the matter easily, like a philosopher, Mrs. Miles was, as she would have described it, “in a sad way;” she felt as if her own and her husband’s good name were at stake, and that they might be unjustly accused of sharing in the toothsome dainty, basely come by, and for which some Sunday dinner had waited in vain. She renounced Prince with a groan. But next morning, when the dog stood letting Freddy harness him with pack-thread, Nanse thought better of it. She judged correctly that Prince was only a dumb brute; when the worst came to the worst, she was not certain whether Uncle Jerry were not accountable for Prince’s bad tricks, and whether she and Miles, as Uncle Jerry’s representatives, did not owe the dog some reparation for the cruel wrong done him. At the same time, she was careful to relieve her conscience and clear her credit by solemnly warning the baker and butcher, and going so far as to offer to pay for any amount of plunder with regard to which it could be proved that it had not been left carelessly, after her caution, in the dog’s way. The tradesmen, to whom Mrs. Miles always paid her bills to a day, took her communication in good part, and even generously tossed to Prince an occasional crust or bone, which, nevertheless, had not the effect of curing him of his culpable weakness. But Mrs. Miles left him as few chances as possible of lapsing into his one inveterate vice. With this, alas! flagrant exception, Prince ended by being a tolerably respectable character, in the favourable circumstances to which he was so fortunate as to attain at last. [Illustration] CHAPTER II. “HIGH LIFE.” SIR EDWIN LANDSEER intended to produce a broad contrast when he painted two dogs, and ticketed them respectively “Low Life” and “High Life.” I need hardly say he succeeded in his attempt. Never were dog nature and dog surroundings more widely opposed than those which are to be found in the two pictures.