"O Coopy! I was so bad, I don't think you can love me any more," began the repentant one with a sob.
"Oh yes I can; and just as soon as I get money enough, we'll go and live in the swan-house, won't we?" returned the faithful lover, making the most of this melting mood.
"I'll go right away to-morrow, I don't care about the money. I like the nice bright pennies, and we don't need much, and I've got my new saucepan to begin with," cried Chow-chow in a burst of generosity, for, like a true woman, though she demanded impossibilities at first, yet when her heart was won she asked nothing but love, and was content with a saucepan.
"O Goody! and I've got my drum," returned the enraptured Cupid, as ready as the immortal Traddles to go to housekeeping with a toasting fork and a bird-cage, or some such useful trifles.
"But I was bad about the pie," cried Chow-chow as her sins kept rising before her; and, burning to make atonement for this one, she ran to the closet, tore out the pie, and, thrusting it into Cupid's hands, said in a tone of heroic resolution, "There, you eat it all, and I won't taste a bit."
"No, you eat it all, I'd like to see you. I don't care for it, truly, 'cause I love you more than a million pies," protested Cupid, offering back the treasure in a somewhat ruinous state after its various vicissitudes.
"Then give me a tiny bit, and you have the rest," said Chow-chow, bent on self-chastisement.
"The fairest way is to cut it 'zactly in halves, and each have a piece. Mamma says that's the right thing to do always." And Cupid, producing a jack-knife, proceeded to settle the matter with masculine justice.
