'"Oh, dear, no," I said, and the trots, smiling with delight, stooped—not that they had so very far to stoop—to stroke him too.
'"Pretty doggie," said Doll.
'"Pretty doggie," said Dot.
'Then they held up their dear little mouths to kiss me. "Zank zou, lady," they said, and each taking a hand of Bessie again, they proceeded on their way.
'After that day, not many passed without my seeing them, and talking to them, and making Gip show off his tricks. Sometimes our meetings were at the window, sometimes on the road; once or twice, when there came some unusually fine mild days, mamma let me sit out on the shore, and I taught the trots to dig a hole for Gip and bury him in the sand, all but his bright eyes and funny black nose—that was a beautiful game! I never found out exactly where my friends lived; it was in one of the side streets leading on to the Esplanade, that was all I knew. I never knew, as I said, if they were boys or girls, or perhaps one of each. Mamma wanted one day to ask Bessie, but I wouldn't let her. They were just my two little trots, that was all I wanted to know.
'"It would spoil them to fancy them growing up into great boys or girls," I said. "I want them to be always trots—nothing else."
'And as Bessie called them simply Doll and Dot, without any "master" or "miss," I was able to keep my fancy.
'When the weather grew colder, the trots came out in a new costume—sealskin coats, sealskin caps, and sealskin gloves—they were just little balls of sealskin, and looked "trottier" than ever. About this time they left off carrying their woolly lambs. I suspect the real reason was that their extreme affection for the lambs had resulted in these favoured animals growing more black than white, and that Bessie judged them unfit for appearing in public, but if this was the case, evidently Bessie had been obliged to resort to artifice to obtain their owners' consent to the lambs being left at home. For, when I asked the trots where the precious creatures were, they looked melancholy and distressed and shook their heads.
'"Too told!" said Doll, and Dot repeated, like a mournful echo, "too told!"
'"Of course," said I, "how stupid of me not to think of it! of course it's far too cold for such very little lambs to be out."