Dora came to the drawing room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys⁠—not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject⁠—by asking Dora, without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar?

My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder.

“How can you ask me anything so foolish?” pouted Dora. “Love a beggar!”

“Dora, my own dearest!” said I. “ I am a beggar!”