I was cuddled close up against my window, throned in a
big arm-chair with many pillows, a spirit-lamp, cocoa, bread and butter,
and buns; so I fared well. Just after the pheasants and the first
querulous fidgetings of hungry blackbirds comes a soft pattering along
the path below: and Benjy, secretive and important, is fussing his way
to the shrubbery, when instinct or real sentiment prompts him to look up
at my window; he gives a whimper and a wag, and goes on. I try to
persuade myself that he didn't see me, and that he does this, other
mornings, when I am not thus perversely bolstered up in rebellion, and
peering through blinds at wrong hours. Isn't there something pathetic in
the very idea that a dog may have a behind-your-back attachment of that
sort?--that every morning he looks up at an unresponsive blank, and
wags, and goes by?
I heard him very happy in the shrubs a moment after: he and a pheasant,
I fancy, disputing over a question of boundaries. And he comes in for
breakfast, three hours later, looking positively _fresh,_ and wants to
know why I am yawning.
Most mornings he brings your letter up to my room in his mouth. It is
old Nan-nan's joke: she only sends up _yours_ so, and pretends it is
Benjy's own clever selection. I pretend that, too, to him; and he thinks
he is doing something wonderful. The other morning I was--well, Benjy
hears splashing: and tires of waiting--or his mouth waters.
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