“Since he is safe,” said Charles, “never mind the collar and bell. We will get another when times are better, and there are fewer thieves about.”
“There is something worse than theft here,” observed Marguerite, sadly. “I abhor those colours.”
“Then let us wash them off, if we can; and mind, Pauline, if you wish your dog to be safe, you must keep him within doors till his coat is perfectly white again.”
The washing availed little, as the dog was not besmeared but dyed. To get rid of as much red and blue as possible, mamma cut off the new collar, and gave Pauline a piece of white satin ribbon. Grandpapa helped the child to tie it on, and sent her also for a white lily,—his favourite flower,—and fastened it where the bell had been; and then Joli looked something like a royalist dog again.
“I do wonder, Charles,” said his wife, while this was doing, “that you go on always talking of better times coming, and of the fine things that are to happen by and by. You have done so ever since I knew you; ever since——”
“Yes, love, ever since the days when you were so very sure that your father would never approve me; that my business would never flourish; that, for one reason or another, we should never come together.”
“Ah! I was not a cool judge in that case.”
“Nor I, I am sure, my dear.”
“You seldom are, if there is any room at all for hope. Plunge you into an abyss of distress, and you are the calmest of judges. I would trust you to find your way in utter darkness; but the least glimmering you take for daylight. At this very moment, when you know that all affairs have been looking more and more gloomy for these ten years past; when the people are starving and rebellious, when your trade is almost annihilated, and my dowry destroyed, with that of thousands of your neighbours, you still talk of the good times that are coming.”
“You think this very senseless, my love, I dare say?”