It was eleven o'clock of the following morning; a dreamy June day, afloat with color, scent, and warmth, as gentle as the depths of tenderness in the human heart, and as vigorous as its noblest aspirations.

The students of the famous medical school of the University of St. George were crowding up the flagged walk and the old granite steps of the college; the lecture room was filling; the students chatted and joked profusely, as medical students do, on occasions least productive of amusement to the non-professional observer. There chanced to be some sprays of lily of the valley in a tumbler set upon the window sill of the adjoining physiological laboratory, and the flower seemed to stare at something which it saw within the room. Now and then, through the door connecting with the lecture room, a faint sound penetrated the laughter and conversation of the students,—a sound to hear and never to forget while remembrance rang through the brain, but not to tell of.

The room filled; the demonstrator appeared suddenly, in his fresh, white blouse; the students began to grow quiet. Some one had already locked the door leading from the laboratory to the hallway. The lily in the window looked, and seemed, in the low June wind, to turn its face away.

"Gentlemen," began the operator, "we have before us to-day a demonstration of unusual beauty and interest. It is our intention to study"—here he minutely described the nature of the operation. "There will be also some collateral demonstrations of more than ordinary value. The material has been carefully selected. It is young and healthy," observed the surgeon. "We have not put the subject under the usual anæsthesia,"—he motioned to his assistant, who at this point went into the laboratory,—"because of the importance of some preliminary experiments which were instituted yesterday, and to the perfection of which consciousness is conditional. Gentlemen, you see before you"—

The assistant entered through the laboratory door at this moment, bearing something which he held straight out before him. The students, on tiered and curving benches, looked down from their amphitheatre, lightly, as they had been trained to look.

"It is needless to say," proceeded the lecturer, "that the subject will be mercifully disposed of as soon as the demonstration is completed. And we shall operate with the greatest tenderness, as we always do. Gentlemen, I am reminded of a story"—

The demonstrator indulged in a little persiflage at this point, raising a laugh among the class; he smiled himself; he gestured with the scalpel, which he had selected while he was talking; he made three or four sinister cuts with it in the air, preparatory cuts,—an awful rehearsal. He held the instrument suspended, thoughtfully.

"The first incision"—he began. "Follow me closely, now. You see—Gentlemen? Gentlemen! Really, I cannot proceed in such a disturbance—What is that noise?" With the suspended scalpel in his hand, the demonstrator turned impatiently.

"It's a row in the corridor," said one of the students. "We hope you won't delay for that, doctor. It's nothing of any consequence. Please go ahead."

But the locked door of the laboratory shook violently, and rattled in unseen hands. Voices clashed from the outside. The disturbance increased.

"Open! Open the door!" Heavy blows fell upon the panels.

"In the name of humanity, in the name of mercy, open this door!"

"It must be some of those fanatics," said the operator, laying down his instrument. "Where is the janitor? Call him to put a stop to this."

He took up the instrument with an impetuous motion; then laid it irritably down again. The attention of his audience was now concentrated upon the laboratory door, for the confusion had redoubled. At the same time feet were heard approaching the students' entrance to the lecture room. One of the young men took it upon himself to lock that door also, which was not the custom of the place; but he found no key, and two or three of his classmates joined him in standing against the door, which they barricaded. Their blood was up,—they knew not why; the fighting animal in them leaped at the mysterious intrusion. There was every prospect of a scene unprecedented in the history of the lecture room.

The expected did not happen. It appeared that some unsuccessful effort was made to force this door, but it was not prolonged; then the footsteps retreated down the stairs, and the demand at the laboratory entrance set in again,—this time in a new voice:—

"It is an officer of the court! There is a search-warrant for stolen property! Open in the name of the Law! Open this door in the name of the Commonwealth!"

Now the door sank open, was burst open, or was unlocked,—in the excitement, no one knew which or how,—and the professor and the lawyer, the officer and the search-warrant, fell in.

The professor pushed ahead, and strode to the operating table.

There lay the tiny creature, so daintily reared, so passionately beloved; he who had been sheltered in the heart of luxury, like the little daughter of the house herself; he who used never to know a pang that love or luxury could prevent or cure; he who had been the soul of tenderness, and had known only the soul of tenderness. There, stretched, bound, gagged, gasping, doomed to a doom which the readers of this page would forbid this pen to describe, lay the silver Yorkshire, kissing his vivisector's hand.

In the past few months Loveliness had known to the uttermost the matchless misery of the lost dog (for he had been sold and restolen more than once); he had known the miseries of cold, of hunger, of neglect, of homelessness, and other torments of which it is as well not to think; the sufferings which ignorance imposes upon animals. He was about to endure the worst torture of them all,—that reserved by wisdom and power for the dumb, the undefended, and the small.

The officer seized the scalpel which the demonstrator had laid aside, and slashed through the straps that bound the victim down. When the gag was removed, and the little creature, shorn, sunken, changed, almost unrecognizable, looked up into his master's face, those cruel walls rang to such a cry of more than human anguish and ecstasy as they had never heard before, and never may again.

The operator turned away; he stood in his butcher's blouse and stared through out of the laboratory window, over the head of the lily, which regarded him fixedly. The students grew rapidly quiet. When the professor took Loveliness into his arms, and the Yorkshire, still crying like a human child that had been lost and saved, put up his weak paws around his master's neck and tried to kiss the tears that fell, unashamed, down the cheeks of that eminent man, the lecture room burst into a storm of applause; then fell suddenly still again, as if it felt embarrassed both by its expression and by its silence, and knew not what to do.

"Has the knife touched him—anywhere?" asked the professor, choking.

"No, thank God!" replied the demonstrator, turning around timidly; "and I assure you—our regrets—such a mistake"—

"That will do, doctor," said the professor. "Gentlemen, let me pass, if you please. I have no time to lose. There is one waiting for this little creature who"—

He did not finish his sentence, but went out from among them. As he passed with the shorn and quivering dog in his arms, the students rose to their feet.

He stopped the cab a hundred feet away, went across a neighbor's lot, and