shrill, unearthly notes in the dead of night, while the moaning wind
sweeps, sobbing, round the ruined turret towers, and passes wailing

like a woman through the chambers bare and tenantless.
And dying prisoners, in their loathsome dungeons, see through the

horrid gloom their small red eyes, like glittering coals, hear in the
death-like silence the rush of their claw-like feet, and start up

shrieking in the darkness and watch through the awful night.
I love to read tales about rats. They make my flesh creep so. I like

that tale of Bishop Hatto and the rats. The wickedbishop, you know,
had ever so much corn stored in his granaries and would not let the

starving people touch it, but when they prayed to him for food
gathered them together in his barn, and then shutting the doors on

them, set fire to the place and burned them all to death. But next
day there came thousands upon thousands of rats, sent to do judgment

on him. Then Bishop Hatto fled to his strong tower that stood in the
middle of the Rhine, and barred himself in and fancied he was safe.

But the rats! they swam the river, they gnawed their way through the
thick stone walls, and ate him alive where he sat.

"They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the bishop's bones;

They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him."

Oh, it's a lovely tale.
Then there is the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, how first he

piped the rats away, and afterward, when the mayor broke faith with
him, drew all the children along with him and went into the mountain.

What a curious old legend that is! I wonder what it means, or has it
any meaning at all? There seems something strange and deep lying hid

beneath the rippling rhyme. It haunts me, that picture of the quaint,
mysterious old piper piping through Hamelin's narrow streets, and the

children following with dancing feet and thoughtful, eager faces. The
old folks try to stay them, but the children pay no heed. They hear

the weird, witched music and must follow. The games are left
unfinished and the playthings drop from their careless hands. They

know not whither they are hastening. The mystic music calls to them,
and they follow, heedless and unasking where. It stirs and vibrates

in their hearts and other sounds grow faint. So they wander through
Pied Piper Street away from Hamelin town.

I get thinking sometimes if the Pied Piper is really dead, or if he
may not still be roaming up and down our streets and lanes, but

playing now so softly that only the children hear him. Why do the
little faces look so grave and solemn when they pause awhile from

romping, and stand, deep wrapt, with straining eyes? They only shake
their curly heads and dart back laughing to their playmates when we

question them. But I fancy myself they have been listening to the
magic music of the old Pied Piper, and perhaps with those bright eyes

of theirs have even seen his odd, fantastic figure gliding unnoticed
through the whirl and throng.

Even we grown-up children hear his piping now and then. But the
yearning notes are very far away, and the noisy, blustering world is

always bellowing so loud it drowns the dreamlike melody. One day the
sweet, sad strains will sound out full and clear, and then we too

shall, like the little children, throw our playthings all aside and
follow. The loving hands will be stretched out to stay us, and the

voices we have learned to listen for will cry to us to stop. But we
shall push the fond arms gently back and pass out through the

sorrowing house and through the open door. For the wild, strange
music will be ringing in our hearts, and we shall know the meaning of

its song by then.
I wish people could love animals without getting maudlin over them, as

so many do. Women are the most hardened offenders in such respects,
but even our intellectual sex often degrade pets into nuisances by

absurd idolatry. There are the gushing young ladies who, having read
"David Copperfield," have thereupon sought out a small, longhaired dog

of nondescript breed, possessed of an irritating habit of criticising
a man's trousers, and of finally commenting upon the same by a sniff

indicative of contempt and disgust. They talk sweet girlish prattle
to this animal (when there is any one near enough to overhear them),

and they kiss its nose, and put its unwashed head up against their
cheek in a most touching manner; though I have noticed that these

caresses are principally performed when there are young men hanging
about.

Then there are the old ladies who worship a fat poodle, scant of
breath and full of fleas. I knew a couple of elderly spinsters once

who had a sort of German sausage on legs which they called a dog
between them. They used to wash its face with warm water every

morning. It had a mutton cutlet regularly for breakfast; and on
Sundays, when one of the ladies went to church, the other always

stopped at home to keep the dog company.
There are many families where the whole interest of life is centered

upon the dog. Cats, by the way, rarely suffer from excess of
adulation. A cat possesses a very fair sense of the ridiculous, and

will put her paw down kindly but firmly upon any nonsense of this
kind. Dogs, however, seem to like it. They encourage their owners in

the tomfoolery, and the consequence is that in the circles I am
speaking of what "dear Fido" has done, does do, will do, won't do, can

do, can't do, was doing, is doing, is going to do, shall do, shan't
do, and is about to be going to have done is the continual theme of

discussion from morning till night.
All the conversation, consisting, as it does, of the very dregs of

imbecility, is addressed to this confounded animal. The family sit in
a row all day long, watching him, commenting upon his actions, telling

each other anecdotes about him, recalling his virtues, and remembering
with tears how one day they lost him for two whole hours, on which

occasion he was brought home in a most brutal manner by the
butcher-boy, who had been met carrying him by the scruff of his neck

with one hand, while soundly cuffing his head with the other.
After recovering from these bitter recollections, they vie with each

other in bursts of admiration for the brute, until some more than
usually enthusiastic member, unable any longer to control his

feelings, swoops down upon the unhappy quadruped in a frenzy of
affection, clutches it to his heart, and slobbers over it. Whereupon

the others, mad with envy, rise up, and seizing as much of the dog as
the greed of the first one has left to them, murmur praise and

devotion.
Among these people everything is done through the dog. If you want to

make love to the eldest daughter, or get the old man to lend you the
garden roller, or the mother to subscribe to the Society for the

Suppression of Solo-Cornet Players in Theatrical Orchestras (it's a
pity there isn't one, anyhow), you have to begin with the dog. You

must gain its approbation before they will even listen to you, and if,
as is highly probable, the animal, whose frank, doggy nature has been

warped by the unnaturaltreatment he has received, responds to your
overtures of friendship by viciously snapping at you, your cause is

lost forever.
"If Fido won't take to any one," the father has thoughtfully remarked

beforehand, "I say that man is not to be trusted. You know, Maria,
how often I have said that. Ah! he knows, bless him."

Drat him!
And to think that the surly brute was once an innocent puppy, all legs

and head, full of fun and play, and burning with ambition to become a
big, good dog and bark like mother.

Ah me! life sadly changes us all. The world seems a vast horrible
grinding machine, into which what is fresh and bright and pure is

pushed at one end, to come out old and crabbed and wrinkled at the
other.

Look even at Pussy Sobersides, with her dull, sleepy glance, her
grave, slow walk, and dignified, prudish airs; who could ever think

that once she was the blue-eyed, whirling, scampering,
head-over-heels, mad little firework that we call a kitten?

What marvelousvitality a kitten has. It is really something very
beautiful the way life bubbles over in the little creatures. They

rush about, and mew, and spring; dance on their hind legs, embrace
everything with their front ones, roll over and over, lie on their

backs and kick. They don't know what to do with themselves, they are
so full of life.