GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



On one occasion Nero ran away at the bottom of Cadogan Place 

 Eleven o'clock struck. " Time to go home to porridge, but the 

 vermin was wanting. ... I had to go back as far as Wilton 

 Crescent. Then the miserable quadruped appeared, and I nearly 

 bullied the life out of him, but he licked my milk-dish at home with 

 the same relish." Nero bore no malice, because he knew from 

 experience that what his Master himself described as " his sul- 

 phurous moods, were very closely related to tenderness." 

 " Always," he writes, " on his coming home he trips up to your 

 room till I call him back. I wish he would give it over, for it makes 

 me wae. I have been mainly under the awning all day, and got 

 my sheets, three of them, corrected. God help thee ever, dearest ; 

 whom else have I in the world ? Be good, be quiet " (she was to 

 rest) " and write ! " Another time she is at home, he is absent, 

 and no doubt the little dog missed the evening rambles, for she wrote 

 that " he was well, notwithstanding that he gets no exercise beyond 

 the garden." 



Once, when Carlyle returned home somewhat unexpectedly, 

 there was no one to receive him but Nero, who " barked a welcome, 

 and the cat, who sat reflective, without showing the smallest 

 "emotion." He was " obliged to Nero, he forgave the cat." On 

 this occasion the improvement his wife had made in the house 

 enchanted him ; he exclaimed : " Oh, Goody, incomparable 

 artist Goody ! It is really a series of glad surprises . . . my bonnie 

 wee artistikin." 



Poor Nero, run over by a cart, recovered to a certain extent, but 

 developed asthma, and asthma and old age rendered his little life 

 a misery. Mrs. Carlyle made him a little red coat, and he " kept 

 the house with her." She goes from home, and returning, for the 

 first time in eleven years, misses his welcoming bark. But Nero 

 was not yet dead as she feared, and was even a little better, for he 

 ran up the long kitchen stairs to greet her, but " the more he tried 

 to show his joy, the less he could do it " and a bad fit of coughing 

 arrested him. Mr. Carlyle suggested a little prussic acid but 

 about the same time was overheard talking to the dog in the garden. 

 ' Poor little fellow," he said, " I declare I am heartily sorry for 

 you. If I could make you well again, upon my soul, I would." 



Years after he appended a note to a letter which referred to 

 Nero's death. " Poor little, foolish, faithful dog. . . . The wreck 



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