CHAPTER XVIII 



a 



You did, old dog, the best you knew, 

 And that is better than most men do; 

 And if ever I get to the great just place, 

 I shall look for your honest, kind old face." 

 (By Permission.) WILL CARLETON. 



AJNT Mary, true to her promise, 

 would lay by everything else, and sit 

 and hold me by the hour, to cheer 

 and comfort me ; and the doctor would tell 

 me such nice stories, in the long w r inter days, 

 about the rats and the mice. Old Spor- 

 tum, the big tan-and-white bull-clog, gave 

 up the best of everything to me. He never 

 touched the dainty dishes aunt Mary set 

 down for me, until I had eaten my fill, and 

 not then, till I ran and touched his ear with 

 my little nose. Aunt Mary used to wonder 

 just how I told him. 



Of a cold winter morning, when I thought 

 old Sportum had got his cushion in the 

 wicker chair nice and warm, I would run 

 up and whisper in his ear, and he would 



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