I have come to the advent of a prized dog, so long a much esteemed member of the household, that she was regarded, not only by ourselves but our friends, as one of the family. She was a pure bred and fine terrier, given when she was about a year old to my brother, as the parting gift of a friend about to sail for Ceylon. She was dear for his sake as well as for her own, but she soon needed no external recommendation to make her a chief favourite. I have only a hazy recollection of her introduction to us, but a fragment of her illustrious pedigree, which was imparted with befitting seriousness, lingers in my mind. “Her mother was a lineal descendant of the dog that fought the lion at Warwick.” What sort of lion-baiting this was? how it happened to take place at Warwick? what was the date of the event? whether the whole story were not a tradition of the great Bevis? were questions never answered. But we were accustomed to repeat the assertion as a solemn attestation to Skatta’s claims to superiority. Skatta, like Rona, was named for an island in the West—an island which has a substantial existence. Yet though we were told, and implicitly believed for many a day, that the dog was of Western origin, a Skye terrier, this was ultimately disputed. I have been assured that she was a fine Dandie Dinmont terrier, of the renowned mustard species, and that she and her forbears ought to have been traced to pastoral Liddesdale in the South, and not to the corries of Cuchullin in the Land of Mist. I am sorry that I am not possessed of sufficient erudition to settle the point. In the eyes of connoisseurs Skatta was a beautiful dog, though I am doubtful whether the uninitiated world would have perceived the extent of her claims. Her colour hovered between a sulphur yellow and a buff. She was short in the legs and rather long in the body, but not with such an ungainly length as I am told a true Skye terrier should show, just as a genuine Belgian canary-bird ought to be slightly hump-backed. The hair on her back was rough and wiry—one of her good points in our estimation; it was softer on her breast, legs, and feathery tail, and on her head, especially in the case of an admired lock that lay on her forehead, the texture of which was almost as fine as that of floss-silk. Her acute ears were of course erect. Her subtlest of noses was, in accordance with her complexion, red, not black. Her honest affectionate eyes were of warm hazel.