At one period she walked with the women of the family every afternoon, and amused them by her uncontrollable disappointment and chagrin—though she was for the most part a modest, reasonable dog—when they resorted to the rocks and the sands as their place of promenade. She would sit down beside them while they rested, and begin to shiver, though she was in perfect health, and to whimper under her breath a reproach for their perversity. Why were they so provoking? Why could they not have walked on the springy turf of the links, or by the pleasant field path? Then she might have hunted to her heart’s content, and still have been in their company. When my brother was at home, Skatta made a marked distinction between him and the rest of the family, acknowledging him pointedly as her master, and electing herself his constant companion. When he first left home, she was very disconsolate for a few days, and sat a good deal on the garden wall, howling as Gasto did when my father was ill. After a time she seemed to make up her mind to the separation, and transferred her primary allegiance in a measure, and for the moment, to my father. (Though she was of the female sex herself, she gave no support to the rights of women, farther than being social and happy with us girls.) Her real master’s absence was sometimes for many months, and lasted over a period of years; but the moment he reappeared on the scene she returned unfailingly to her first love. So perfect was the good understanding between man and dog, and so blameless was the conduct of the latter as a rule, that I have heard my brother say he only struck his dog twice in the whole course of their long connection. On the first occasion the blow was administered to correct a fault, but on the second his stick fell on the wrong dog in a combat which had been thrust on Skatta, and which he was trying to stop. He averred that he could not bear to look his dog in the face afterwards, because of the meek wonder with which she submitted to the unjust stroke, and, as he complained, he had not the comfort of explaining to her that it was all a mistake. Skatta was never more than friendly to people outside her family, and there was one family friend whom she, like most reflective dogs, held in abhorrence. She hated the doctor, and laid aside her peaceful character to growl out her enmity every time she was in his company. I have heard various reasons assigned for the dislike of dogs to doctors.[C] Do their delicate noses detect and find fault with any subtle aroma hanging about the man who orders drugs? Are the dogs’ affectionate hearts moved by sympathy with the signs of suffering and anxiety, which they are quick to read, in the faces of the family? The dumb animals are clever enough to connect these tokens with the presence of the doctor, while they are not sufficiently well informed—given to leap at conclusions as they are—to comprehend that he is there to relieve distress instead of being its author.