"Are you Miss Jemima?" I asked, in the tone you should always use towards women.
A dimple stole into each beautiful cheek as she nodded assent.
"Well, Mr. Q—— authorises Miss Jemima to give me the kangaroo-dog."
"Come this way, then, please." There was a slight flush of vexation on the girl's face now. And, indeed, it was scarcely fair of Dogberry, when his own soft thing had fallen through, to make Jim cover his dignified retreat. With deepening colour, she led the way to the stable, and opened a loose-box, disclosing Pup, crouched, sphynx-like, with a large bone between his paws. The red collar was gone; and he was chained to the manger by a hame-strap. Of course, I did n't blame the franklin, nor do I blame him now; rather the reverse. There seems something touching and beautiful in the thought that respectability, at best, is merely poised—never hard home; and that our clay will assert itself when a dog like Pup throws himself into the other scale. But I could feel the vicarious crimson spreading over Jim's forehead and ears as I unbuckled the hame-strap, whilst vainly ransacking my mind for some expression of thanks that would n't sound ironical. A terrible tie of sympathetic estrangement bound this sweet scapegoat and me asunder, or divided us together; and each felt that salvation awaited the one who spoke first, and to the point—or rather, from the point. All honour to Jim; she paced——
"You call him 'Pup'," observed the girl girlishly. "He's a big pup."
"His proper name is 'The Eton Boy'," replied the wretch wretchedly.
And neither of us could see anything in the other's remark.
But the tension was relaxed; and, leaving the stable together, we gravely agreed that a thunderstorm seemed to be hanging about. Still a new embarrassment was growing in the girl's face and voice, even in the uneasy movement of her hands. At last it broke out—
"I s'pose you haven't had any dinner?"
"Don't let that trouble you, Miss Q——."
"Father's not himself today," she continued hastily. "He blames us for burning an old straw-stack; and I'm sure we never done it. Mother's been at him to burn it out of the way this years back, for it was right between the house and the road; and it was '78 straw, rotten with rust. But I'm glad we did n't take on us to burn it, for father's vowing vengeance on whoever done it; and he's awful at finding out things."