had experience of their affection, but until we 

 met this waddling little stranger we could 

 never have believed that a mere spot of a duck 

 could have wound itself round our hearts as 

 this one did. If we put it down on the lawn 

 or on a path it would follow I was about to 

 say, like a dog, but that would be an inade- 

 quate description. Certainly it was like a dog 

 in its determination to be with us and not to 

 lose us from view, but, on the other hand, its 

 progress was slow and undeviating, though its 

 gait was by no means solemn. It did not stop 

 to investigate tufts of grass, nor did it attempt 

 to express its joy by capering or by flank move- 

 ments. It just followed, pee-eeping oc- 

 casionally when we got too far ahead and 

 showing manifest delight when we stopped 

 to allow it to catch us up, or when, its 

 exercise being deemed to be duly accom- 

 plished, we took it up and replaced it in 

 a pocket. Indoors, as I say, it had its basket, 

 to which it was often thought safer to transfer 

 it even in the daytime. So long as one of its 

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