"Am I?" and Cupid stopped to think it over.
"Yes; you're horrid vain of your hair, and your velvet clothes, and the dimple in your chin. I know it, 'cause you always look in the glass when you are dressed up, and keep feeling of that ugly hole in your chin, and I see you brush your hair ever so much."
Poor Cupid colored up with shame, and turned his back to the mirror, as the sharp-tongued young monitor went on:—
"My mamma said if you were her boy she'd cut off your curls, put you in a plain suit, and stick some court-plaster over that place till you forgot all about it."
Chow-chow expected an explosion of grief of anger after that last slap; but to her amazement the boy walked out of the room without a word. Going up to his mother as she sat busy with a letter, he asked in a very earnest voice,—
"Mamma, am I vain?"
"I'm afraid you are a little, my dear," answered mamma, deep in her letter.
With a sad but resolute face Cupid went back to Chow-chow, bearing a pair of shears in one hand and a bit of court-plaster in the other.
"You may cut my hair off, if you want to. I ain't going to be a dandy-prat any more," he said, offering the fatal shears with the calmness of a hero.
Chow-chow was much surprised, but charmed with the idea of shearing this meek sheep, so she snipped and slashed until the golden locks lay shining on the floor, and Cupid's head looked as if rats had been gnawing his hair.