'"T'ss, Gip; T'ss, cat. At her; at her," I exclaimed.
'Poor Gip had doubtless been having delightful dreams—it was very hard on him to be wakened up so startlingly. He blinked his eyes and tried to see the imaginary cat—no doubt he thought it was his own fault he did not succeed, for he was the most humble-minded and unpresuming of little dogs, and his faith in me was unbounded. He could not see a cat, but he took it for granted that I did; so he set to work barking vigorously. That was just what I wanted. The trots heard the noise and both turned round; then they let go their nurse's hands and made a little journey round her skirts till they met.
"Suddenly a bright thought struck me. I seized Gip, my little dog, who was asleep on the hearthrug, and held him up to the window."
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'"Dot," said one, "pretty doggie."
'"Doll," said the other, both speaking at once, you understand, "pretty doggie."
'I don't mean to say that I heard what they said, I only saw it. But afterwards, when I had heard their voices, I felt sure that was what they had said, for they almost always spoke together.
'Then they joined their disengaged hands (the outside hand of each still clasping its woolly lamb), and there they stood, legs well apart, little mouths and eyes wide open, staring with the greatest interest and solemnity at Gip and me. At Gip, of course, far more than at me. Gip was a dog, I, was only a girl!—quite a middle-aged person, no doubt, the trots thought me, if they thought about me at all; perhaps they did a little, as I was Gip's owner; for I was sixteen, and they could not have been much more than three.