“But Jip,” said Dora, looking at him with compassion, “even little Jip! Oh, poor fellow!”

“I dare say he’ll last a long time yet, Blossom,” said my aunt, patting Dora on the cheek, as she leaned out of her couch to look at Jip, who responded by standing on his hind legs, and baulking himself in various asthmatic attempts to scramble up by the head and shoulders. “He must have a piece of flannel in his house this winter, and I shouldn’t wonder if he came out quite fresh again, with the flowers in the spring. Bless the little dog!” exclaimed my aunt, “if he had as many lives as a cat, and was on the point of losing ’em all, he’d bark at me with his last breath, I believe!”

Dora had helped him up on the sofa; where he really was defying my aunt to such a furious extent, that he couldn’t keep straight, but barked himself sideways. The more my aunt looked at him, the more he reproached her; for she had lately taken to spectacles, and for some inscrutable reason he considered the glasses personal.