Page:E Nesbit - Man and Maid (1906).djvu/305

 would have melted my heart, or yours, dear reader, in an instant. But Tabbies are Tabbies, and a bazaar is a bazaar. No more sewing was done that day; what was left of the afternoon proved all too short for the disentangling, the partial cleansing of the desecrated lace-cotton-reel-silk-muddle. And Alcibiades was tied up in the back-kitchen to the wheel of the patent mangle; he howled without ceasing.

“My dear,” said the Aunt, when tea was over, and the last Tabby had found her goloshes and gone home in them, “you are most welcome under any roof of mine, but—(may I ask you to close the baize door at the top of the kitchen stairs—thank you—and now this one—I am obliged. One cannot hear oneself speak for that terrible animal)—you must get rid of the cur to-morrow.”

“Oh, Aunt! he’s not a cur—he’s pure-bred.”

“Thank you,” said the Aunt, “I believe I am as good a judge of dogs as any lady. My own dear Snubs has only been dead a year and two months last Tuesday. I know that a well-bred dog should have smooth hair, at any rate”