"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs Dale, who was embroidering the word Caroline on the border of a cambric pocket-handkerchief, but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not bite, will he?" "Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; but (she added, in a confidential whisper,) "don't say he—'tis a lady dog!" "Oh," said Mrs Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions—"oh, then, you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs—that is being consistent indeed, Jemima!"
Miss Jemima.—"I had a gentleman dog once—a pug!—they are getting very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me—he snapped at every one else;—the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe,—I had been staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick might do. So, on coming here, I left Buff—that was his name—with Miss Smilecox." (A pause.)
Mrs Dale, looking up languidly.—"Well, my love."
Miss Jemima.—"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me again. A pug, too—yet people say pugs are faithful!!! I am sure they ought to be, nasty things. I have never had a gentleman dog since—they are all alike, believe me—heartless, selfish creatures."
Mrs Dale.—"Pugs? I dare say they are!"
Miss Jemima, with spirit.—"Men!—I told you it was a gentleman dog!"
Mrs Dale, apologetically.—"True, my love, but the whole thing was so mixed up!"
Miss Jemima.—"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of Marriage in the papers—an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is approaching, and that—"
Mrs Dale, quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the universe.—"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you please. Mr Dale has his own opinions, and it becomes me, you know, as a parson's wife," (said smilingly; Mrs Dale has as pretty a dimple as any of Miss Jemima's, and makes more of that one than Miss Jemima of three,) "to agree with him—that is, in theology."
Miss Jemima, earnestly.—"But the thing is so clear, if you would but look into—"