own dignity
in the meantime. Never to let her dream of an uneasiness that might
have screamed, an anger that could have bitten and scratched and been
happy in the primitive exercise. Was such a task beyond her adequacy?

Below in the garden the late sun slanted upon her husband, as with
declamatory hands and intense brows he chanted emotional poetry, ready
himself on the slope of opportunity to roll into verses from his own
resources. He criticised, with agile misconception, the inner meaning,
the involved, hard-hidden heart of the poet; and the serpent sat before
him and nodded. She smiled enchantments at him, and allurements, and
subtle, subtle disagreements. On the grass at their feet the toy
terrier bounded from his slumbers and curved an imperative and furious
hind-leg in the direction of his ear.

Mrs. Morrissy called the dog, and it followed her into the house,
frisking joyously. From the kitchen she procured a small basket, and
into this she packed some old cloths and pieces of biscuit. Then she
picked up the terrier, cuffed it on both sides of the head, popped it
into the basket, tucked its humbly-agitated tail under its abject ribs,
closed the basket, and fastened it with a skewer. She next addressed a
label to her cousin's home, tied it to the basket, and despatched a
servant with it to the railway-station, instructing her that it should
be paid for on delivery.

At breakfast the following morning her cousin wondered audibly why her
little, weeny, tiny pet was not coming for its brecky.

Mrs. Morrissy, with a smile of infinite sweetness, suggested that Miss
O'Malley's father would surely feed the brute when it arrived. "It was
a filthy little beast," said she brightly; and she pushed the
toast-rack closer to her husband.

There followed a silence which drowsed and buzzed to eternity, and
during which Mr. Morrissy's curled moustaches straightened and grew
limp and drooped. An edge of ice stiffened around Miss O'Malley.
Incredulity, frozen and wan, thawed into swift comprehension and
dismay, lit a flame in her cheeks, throbbed burningly at the lobes of
her ears, spread magnetic and prickling over her whole stung body, and
ebbed and froze again to immobility. She opposed her cousin's kind
eyes with a stony brow.

"I think," said she rising, "that I had better see to my packing."

"Must you go?" said Mrs. Morrissy, with courteous unconcern, and she
helped herself to cream. Her husband glared insanely at