It was when I was so unhappy—I tried to help it, but I really could not—about my poor dear white china poodle (Jael broke him when she was dusting, and then she swept up his tail, though I have so begged her to keep the bits when she cleans our room, and breaks things; and now he never never can be mended, all the days of my life):—it was when I was crying about him, and Grandmamma told Dr. Brown how silly I was, to make me feel ashamed, that he said—"There are some tempers which, if they haven't enough people to love, will love things."
Margery says he did not say tempers but temperaments. I know it began with temper, because it reminded me of Jael, who said "them tears is all temper, Miss Grace," which was very hard, because she knew—she knew quite well—it was about my poodle; and though accidents will happen, she need not have swept up his tail.
Margery is sure to be right. She always it. Besides, we looked it out in Johnson's Dictionary, which we are rather food of, though it is very heavy to lift. We like the bits out of books, in small print; but I could not understand the bits to the word temperament, and I do not think Margery could either, though she can understand much more than I can.
There is a very odd bit to the word temperamental, and it is signed Brown; but we do not know if that means our Dr. Brown. This is the bit: "That temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our nails, we concede."—Brown.
We could not understand it, so we lifted down the other volume (one is just as heavy as the other), and looked out "Dignotion," and it means "distinction, distinguishing mark," and then there is the same bit over again, but at the end is "Brown's Vulgar Errors." And we did not like to ask Dr. Brown if they were his vulgar errors, for fear he should think us rude. I thought we might perhaps ask him if they were his errors, and leave out vulgar, which is rather a rude word, but Margery thought it better not, and she is sure to be right. She always is.
But we should have liked to ask Dr. Brown about it, if it had not been rude, because we think a good deal of spots on our nails. All we know about them is that you begin at your thumb, and count on to your little finger, in this way,
"A Gift, a Beau,
A Friend, a Foe,
A Journey to go."
I like having a Beau, or a Friend; Margery likes a Gift, or a Journey to go. We neither of us like having Foes.
And it shows that it does come true, because Margery had a white spot in the middle of her left little finger-nail, just when our father's old friend wrote to Grandmamma, for one of us to go and pay him a visit; and Margery went, because she was the elder of the two.
I do not know how I bore parting with her, except with hoping that she would enjoy herself, for she always had wanted so very much to have a journey to go. But if she had been at home, so that I could have taken her advice, I do not think I should have been so silly about the Sunflowers and the Rushlight.