"CHIN:"   THE STORY OF A  TAME CIIINCIIILLA. 145

His life was to have been completed by companionship, and matters were all arranged for the arrival of Chilla (for even her name was ready), but he died just as his favourite China-roses began to bloom, and just as Chilla was coming; and all that could be done for him was to make his velvet-soft skin into a sac for the sailor-nephew who brought him over, and to tell, as his mistress says she hardly likes to tell, " how much of life's light-heartedness and cheeriness ended" with him. But Chin had been the first thing that awoke the feeling of cheerfulness under the crushing weight of a life-long grief; and so he was well beloved by his friends for his own sake, and for hers who in her loving memoir of her pet, in despair of words doing justice to him and his pretty ways, ends with a sentiment which those who knew him best would all agree in—" I don't know that anything that amid be said of Chin could ever give you an idea of his beauty, grace, and fascination."

THE   EMI