[ Francillon / Olympia ]
Robert Edward Francillon (1841 - 1919) was an English lawyer, author, and editor. His early novella Olympia was first published serially in the Gentleman's Magazine (January - December 1874), from which the text below is taken. It was also published in book form in 1874 (London: Grant).
This work deals with the travails of Olympia, an orphaned child who goes to live with her uncle, in whose household she does not seem particularly wanted, and is certainly not much befriended. She spends much time alone, reading — but at least for a while has another sort of companion:
But she did not wholly depend on books for congenial playmates. There was Pluto.
Pluto was to the outer world a clumsy, unlucky Newfoundland puppy. To Olympia he was brothers, sisters, and playmates all in one. She was the worst possible mother to the dolls which the Captain had given her from time to time when nobody was looking, and seldom thought of their existence after the first half hour; but to Pluto she gave her whole heart, and he was not ungrateful. When he was cuffed for mischief, as not unfrequently happened, it was her heart that really felt the blow. He consoled her for much, but what good end could come to the friendship between an unlucky puppy and an unlucky girl?
Unlucky indeed. At a birthday party a valuable vase gets broken, and Olympia's mean cousin, Marian, blames Pluto the Newfoundland even though she herself was responsible for the breakage. To protect the puppy Olympia takes the blame. She is punished, but learns an important lesson:
But a further effect was that, having found her course of conduct in this instance so admirably successful in shielding her friend [Pluto] from disgrace and pain, she took to repeating it whenever she had the chance, bearing upon her overburdened shoulders all Pluto's many sins as well as her own. At last, when some piece of drawing-room literature, gorgeously bound in red and gold, together with Mrs. Westwood's new bonnet, was found in tatters on the floor and with manifest marks of canine teeth and paws, she for the twentieth time declared —
"Twasn't Pluto, Aunt Caroline, 'twas Me."
But this was a little too much. Olympia was punished for telling a glaring lie, and, alas! Pluto was not only whipped but sent away for ever. It was the greatest grief she had ever known, and, young as she was, gave her the feeling that the same mysterious curse which lay upon her extended to those also whom she loved.
Pluto is never mentioned again.