How could I turn my back on the little orphan, who, instead of bounding off up the steep hill, used to run confidingly up to me, and poke its black muzzle into my hand, as if it would say, "Here is a friend at last"?
And then merino lambs are so much prettier than any I have seen in England.

Their snow-white wool is as tightly screwed up in small curls as any Astracan fleece, and from being of so much more active a race, they are smaller and more compact than English lambs, and not so awkward and leggy.

A merino lamb of a couple of hours old is far better fitted to take care of itself up a mountain than a civilized and helpless lamb of a month old, besides these latter being so weak about the knees always.

I only mention this, not out of any desire to "blow" about our sheep, but because I want to account for my tender-heartedness on the subject of desolate orphans.

The ewes scarcely ever died of disease, unless by a rare chance it happened to be a very old lady whose constitution gave way at last before a severe winter.