In the picture, Flora is sitting waiting, as she so often sat, expectation and longing in every bristling hair, but without a single demonstration of violence or obstreperous appeal. The door is closed, and it is not for her to batter it, as Flora knows right well, neither will she disturb her friends and owners by intruding her wishes on them in barking and yelping. It is not that she has tried the artillery and found it fail; it is that she is too reasonable, too long-suffering, too unexacting and unselfish to practice with the weapons of a smaller dog in every way. [Illustration] There she is, a great, not over-comely, and somewhat uncouth dog, but loyal and loving to the heart’s core—as considerate as a dog can be—full of a great trust in and an absolute submission to her master, who is her lord and king, and in her master’s absence to his family and representatives. She is so strong that she can afford to dispense with bullying, and is meek in her strength and mild in her power. She sits to the artist, full of the anxiety and desire which you can read in a thousand signs—by her wide-apart legs, the one foot slightly raised, as on tiptoe—by the head bent in the attitude of intent listening—by the fixed eyes, a little mournful, as deeply-loving eyes are apt to be—by the hair rising on the crest of the back—by the very squat of the haunches, and the utterly flat and flaccid condition of the great tail laid at rest on the floor; for you will please to observe that Flora, though hearkening with all her ears, does not catch the faintest murmur of sound. It is the dog’s instinct and affection—whatever she has for a mind—that is on the rack, and not her nerves or her senses. She remains perfectly still and silent—a monument of watching and hope, which are not undashed with fear and doubt, almost despair; for the dog is capable of very keen and constant attachment, and she has little knowledge wherewith to lighten the apprehensions and solace the pangs of devotion put on its hardest trial. But should Flora’s hope deferred sink in the end into fathomless despondency, the dog will still contain herself. She will be no burden to anybody. She will not add to the grief of others, who have a better right than she has to mourn. She will wear a decent veil of reserve over her anguish. What is she that she should cry out against destiny? She will go about her usual avocations, and even faintly wag her tail and make a formal show of joy at her friends’ advances, or on any occasion of hilarity. There will be no idle baying at the moon, or wild howling in the dead of night, causing the blood of other watchers to curdle, in Flora’s case; she knows how to suffer and be silent, nay, to put the best face on suffering. Only the old dog’s tread will grow heavier and heavier, in proportion to the increasing heaviness of her heart, as she stalks about her business. She will get ever gaunter, without attracting much notice to her spectral condition, until one