“What, pray, is that contrivance?” she demanded.
Miss Perry tucked the wicker basket under her arm.
“Oh, if you please, Aunt Caroline,” said she, with a drawl that was really irresistibly foolish, “this is Tobias.”
“Tobias,” said the old lady, suspiciously. “Who pray, and what, pray, is Tobias?”
Perhaps it is right to mention that the old lady was not alone in her suspiciousness. It was shared by Ponto. That overfed quadruped, having made a very good luncheon indeed, was curled up at the feet of his mistress. Yet at the mere mention of Tobias, whether by an association of ideas, or by a process of mental telepathy peculiar to the dumb creation, I am not prepared to say, but Ponto began to grow decidedly restless.
“I trust,” said the old lady, viewing the wicker basket with an increasing disfavor, “that Tobias is not any kind of an animal.”
As if to corroborate his mistress, Ponto opened his eyes and began to grow uncommonly wide-awake.
“Tobias is just a sweet,” said Miss Perry, with a charming air of reassurance. “He is just an old precious.”
The old lady looked so positively arctic as she addressed the custodian of Tobias that both Miss Burden and Mr. Marchbanks were chilled to the marrow.
“If Tobias is a living thing,” said the old lady, “and I have every reason to believe that it is, I forbid it the blue drawing-room. And I consider it an act of gross impertinence——”