RAB AND HIS FRIENDS.

and without a word showed me her right
breast. I looked at and examined it care-
fully—she and James watching me, and
Rab eyeing all three. What could I say?
There it was, that had once been so soft,
so shapely, so white, so gracious and
bountiful, so “full of all blessed condi-
tions ’—hard as a stone, a centre of hor-
rid pain, making that pale face, with its
gray, lucid, reasonable eyes, and its sweet,
resolved mouth, express the full measure
of suffering overcome. Why was that
gentle, modest, sweet woman, clean and
lovable, condemned by God to bear such
a burden ?

I got her away to bed. “May Rab and
me bide?” said James. “You may, and
Rab, if he will behave himself.” “TI’se
warrant he’ll do that, doctor;” and in
slunk the faithful beast. I wish you could
have seen him. There are no such dogs
now. He belonged to a lost tribe. As I

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