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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