"A little present, Miss Dora," he said.
"Oh, thank you, Mr Cleave," said Dora, politely.
On examining the work, Dora found it to consist of The Total Abstainer for the past six months, bound up in a green cover. Glancing casually through it, she suddenly came across a passage heavily marked with a blue pencil. The page on which the passage occurred was headed "Our Pillory," and directly Dora's eye fell on the paragraph she recognised it as an old friend.
"A piteous example of what over-indulgence in alcohol may bring a man to (ran the paragraph) was afforded by a case which came before our notice one day last week in the Kensington Police Court. The degraded being who faced the magistrate with an unabashed gaze was a young doctor named Mortimer----"
Oh yes! Dora well remembered a certain evening in September when Mr Cleave read this out to the assembled company in the drawing-room.
"Do you know, Mr Cleave," she said, sweetly, "I am afraid this book will be rather thrown away on me. I don't drink----"
"There are some excellent tales illustrating the evils----" Cleave was protesting, when Dora interrupted him.
"Yes, but they are hardly the kind of tales girls care to read. It is very kind of you to give me this volume, but I feel you could bestow it better elsewhere."
"As you like--as you like," said Cleave, looking much offended.
"But," said Dora, producing a tiny pair of scissors from her chatelaine, "there is one paragraph I should like to cut out, if you don't mind. This one, look...."