UNOPENED PARCELS. 107

It was my favourite poem, and I knew a great
deal of it by heart. |

“Very good,” said my father; “well, then,
Coleridge, who, as you know from the poem, loved
animals as dearly as you do, tells a story he had
heard of a dog who lost his master, and, after
tracing him down a certain lane, came at last to
a place where four roads met. The statement
was that the dog hereupon put his nose to the
ground, and snuffed two of the three roads he
had come up to, but not finding his master’s track
on either, dashed down the third road without
examination.”

This raised my interest completely. “ Did he
really, papa?” I asked, almost interrupting him.

“That is the very point in dispute,” said my
father. ‘Coleridge thought not. The dog had
certainly not learnt his subtraction table, you
know, Honor—happy dog! eh?—and therefore
could not know from it re when you take three
from four only one remains.’

My father paused till I said, “I don’t under-
stand. papa.”