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wakened in the morning by Tony scratching at my door. Still half-asleep, I got up to let him in, and then return to bed, where he had already taken the most comfortable place. He looked at me for a moment or two and then closed his round, dark, innocent eyes till they showed only as two slits of dim silver, and set up a loud snoring. I was too lazy to get up, and lay idly watching him. he had a curious and expressive beauty, resembling that of some wonderful piece of Chinese porcelain, at once bizarre and attractive. There was something quaint about him, an adorable simplicity. In colour he was white, decorated with brindle patches. Leonardo would have made a drawing of him, would have delighted in the superb limbs and wide deep chest, the big, broad, heavy, wrinkled head, with its massive, low-hanging jaw, its upturned, flat, black nose, its silky ears, like the petals of a rose, and those dark, lovely eyes, in which, when he was at rest, a profound melancholy floated. As a pup, able to walk and no more, he had been a birthday present from Mrs. Carroll: now he weighed about sixty pounds and was three years old.

As I watched him I tried to make up my mind whether I should say anything further about going to Derryaghy. In spite of all last night's bravery I knew well enough that, when it came to that point, it was really rather impossible deliberately to disobey my father; and, what is more, that I