evening repaired to Mr. Mills’s street. Mr. Mills, who was a terrible fellow to fall asleep after dinner, had not yet gone out, and there was no birdcage in the middle window.
He kept me waiting so long, that I fervently hoped the Club would fine him for being late. At last he came out; and then I saw my own Dora hang up the birdcage, and peep into the balcony to look for me, and run in again when she saw I was there, while Jip remained behind, to bark injuriously at an immense butcher’s dog in the street, who could have taken him like a pill.
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?