and was reaching some of the bulrushes with the hook of Anne's parasol, when he suddenly cried out, 'Hollo, what have we here?'
'What?' said some of the girls.
'A dead dog, I believe,' said Rupert.
'Oh! let me see,' cried Harriet, advancing cautiously over the morass.
'Are you curious in such matters. Miss Hazleby?' said Rupert, laughing, as Harriet came splashing towards him through the wet, holding up her frock with one hand, and stretching out the other to him, to be helped upon the island. He pulled her upon it safely, but it quaked fearfully; and there was hardly room for them both to stand on it, while Harriet, holding fast by Rupert's hand, bent forwards, beheld the object of her curiosity, uttered a loud scream, lost her balance, and would have fallen into the river had she not been withheld by Rupert's strength of arm. They both slipped down on the opposite sides of the island, into the black mud, and Harriet precipitately retreated to the mainland.
'Well, what is the matter?' said Elizabeth.
'Oh! my poor dear little doggie!' cried Harriet.
'Is it Fido?' said Elizabeth; 'then, Harriet, there is no fear of your eating him in a sausage; you may be at rest on that score.'
'But can it really be Fido?' said Katherine, pressing forwards.
'Do you wish to see?' said Rupert, 'for if so, I advise you to make haste, the island is sinking fast.'
'I am splashed all over, so I do not care. Can I have one more look?' said Harriet, in a melancholy voice.
Rupert handed her back to the island, where she took her last farewell of poor Fido, all his long hair drenched with water, and the very same blue ribbon which she had herself tied round his neck the day before, floating, a funeral banner, on the surface of the stream. She contemplated him until her weight and Rupert's had sunk the island so much, that it was fast becoming a lake, while Elizabeth whispered to Anne to propose presenting her with a forget-me-not, on Fido's part.
'I hope,' said Rupert, as they proceeded with their walk, 'that you are fully sensible of poor Fido's generous self-sacrifice; he immolated himself to remove, by the manner of his death, any suspicions of Winifred's having the Fidophobia.'
'Perhaps,' said Elizabeth, 'he had some knowledge of the frightful suspicions which attached to him, and, like the Irish varmint in St. Patrick's days,
'went flop,
Slap bang into the water,
And thus committed suicide
To save himself from slaughter.''
They now began to consider how Fido could have met with his death. Harriet was sure that some naughty boy must have thrown him in. Lucy thought that in that case he would have lost his blue ribbon; Dora indignantly repelled the charge of cruelty from the youth of Abbeychurch; Elizabeth said such a puppy was very likely to fall off the bridge; and Rupert decided that he had most probably been attacked by a fit, to which, he said, half-grown puppies were often liable.
Rupert and Anne then began talking about a dog which they had lost some time ago in nearly the same manner; and during this dialogue the party divided, Harriet and Katherine walked on in close consultation, and Lucy and Helen began helping Dora to sort and carry her bulrushes, which detained them behind the others.
'What appears to me the most mysterious part of the story,' said Rupert, 'is how the beloved Fido, petted and watched and nursed and guarded as he seems to have been, should have contrived to stray from your house as far as to the river.'
'Oh! that is no mystery at all,' said Elizabeth; 'we crossed the bridge twice yesterday evening, and I dare say we left him behind us there.'
'What could you have been doing on the bridge yesterday evening?' said Rupert. 'Oh! I know; I saw the people coming away from a tee-total entertainment; you were certainly there, Anne, I hope you enjoyed it.'
'How very near the truth you do contrive to get, Rupert,' said Elizabeth.
'Then,' cried Rupert, with a start, 'I see it all. I thought you all looked very queer at breakfast. I understand it all. You have been to the Mechanics' Institute.'
'Yes, Rupert,' said Elizabeth.
'No, but you do not mean to say that you really have, Lizzie and Anne,' cried Rupert, turning round to look into their faces.
Each made a sign of assent; and Rupert, as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment, burst into a violent fit of laughter, which lasted longer than either his sister or cousin approved, and it was not till after he had been well scolded by both, that he chose to listen to their full account of all that had passed on the subject.
'The worst of it is, now,' said Elizabeth, 'that as soon as Mrs. Hazleby hears that Fido has been found in the river, she will ask how he came near it.'
'And what then?' said Anne.
'Why, she well knows that the bridge is not a place to which we are likely to resort; she will ask what took us there; I would not trust Harriet to tell the truth, and I have promised not to betray her, so what is to be done if Mrs. Hazleby asks me?' said Elizabeth.
'I hope she will not ask her youngest daughter,' said Anne.
'That she shall not do,' said Elizabeth: 'I will tell her myself that Fido was found in the river, and answer all her questions as best I can.'
'It is rather a pity,' said Anne archly, 'that Miss Hazleby did not actually fall into the river, for the sensation caused by Rupert's rescuing her would quite have absorbed all the interest in Fido's melancholy fate.'
'Thank you, Anne,' said Rupert; 'I am sure I only wonder she was not submerged. I never could have guessed any fair lady could be so heavy. I am sure I feel the claw she gave my arm at this moment.'
'How very ungallant!' said Anne.
'Still,' said Rupert, 'without appearing as the preserver of the fair Harriet from a watery grave, I think I have interest enough with Mrs. Hazleby to be able to break the fatal news to her, and calm her first agonies of grief and wrath.'
'You, Rupert?' said Anne.
'Myself, Anne,' replied Rupert; 'you have no notion what friends Mrs. Hazleby and I have become. We had a tete-a-tete of an hour and a half this morning.'
'What could you find to talk about?' said Anne.
'First,' said Rupert, 'she asked about my grouse shooting; where I went, and with whom, and whether I had seen any of the Campbells of Inchlitherock. Of course we embarked in a genealogy of the whole Campbell race; then came a description of the beauties of Inchlitherock. Next I was favoured with her private history; how she, being one of thirteen, was forced, at eighteen, to leave the lovely spot, and embark with her brother for India.'
'On speculation,' said Elizabeth.
'And finally, how she came to marry the Major.'
'O Rupert, that is too much; you must have invented it!' cried Anne.
'Indeed I did not, Anne,' said Rupert; 'it is a fact that she lived somewhere in the Mofussil with her brother, and there she encountered the Major. You, young ladies, may imagine how she fascinated him, and how finally her brother seems to have bullied the Major into marrying her.'
'Poor man!' said Elizabeth, 'I always wondered how he chanced to fall into her clutches. But did you hear no more?'
'No more of her personal history,' said Rupert; 'she kindly employed the rest of her time in giving me wise counsels.'
'Oh! pray let us have the benefit of them,' said Anne, who had by this time pretty well forgotten her prudence.
'There were many regrets that I was not in the army,' said Rupert, 'and many pieces of advice which would have been very useful if I had, but which I am afraid were thrown away upon me, ending with wise reflections upon the importance of a wise choice of a wife, especially for a young man of family, exposed to danger from designing young ladies, with cautions against beauty because of its perishable nature, and learning, because literary ladies are fit for nothing.'
