st as well as I do. For, after
all, the word belonged to that class in the female vocabulary which may
be called "obscure significants," resembling the Konx Ompax, which hath
so puzzled the inquirers into the Eleusinian Mysteries: the application
is rather to be illustrated than the meaning to be exactly explained.

"That's really a sweet little dog of yours, Jemima," said Mrs. Dale,
who was embroidering the word CAROLINE on the border of a cambric pocket
handkerchief; but edging a little farther off, as she added, "he'll not
bite, will he?"

"Dear me, no!" said Miss Jemima; "but" (she added in a confidential
whisper) "don't say he,--'t is a lady dog!"

"Oh," said Mrs. Dale, edging off still farther, as if that confession of
the creature's sex did not serve to allay her apprehensions,--"oh, then,
you carry your aversion to the gentlemen even to lap-dogs,--that is
being consistent indeed, Jemima!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"I had a gentleman dog once,--a pug!--pugs are getting
very scarce now. I thought he was so fond of me--he snapped at every one
else; the battles I fought for him! Well, will you believe--I had been
staying with my friend Miss Smilecox at Cheltenham. Knowing that William
is so hasty, and his boots are so thick, I trembled to think what a kick
might do. So, on coming here I left Bluff--that was his name--with Miss
Smilecox." (A pause.)

MRS. DALE (looking up languidly).--"Well, my love?"

MISS JEMIMA.--"Will you believe it, I say, when I returned to
Cheltenham, only three months afterwards, Miss Smilecox had seduced his
affections from me, and the ungrateful creature did not even know me
again? A pug, too--yet people say pugs are faithful! I am sure they
ought to be, nasty things! I have never had a gentleman dog since,--they
are all alike, believe me, heartless, selfish creatures."

MRS. DALE.--"Pugs? I dare say they are!"

MISS JEMIMA (with spirit).-"MEN!--I told you it was a gentleman dog!"

MRS. DALE (apologetically).--"True, my love, but the whole thing was so
mixed up!"

MISS JEMIMA.--"You saw that cold-blooded case of Breach of Promise of
Marriage in the papers,--an old wretch, too, of sixty-four. No age makes
them a bit better. And when one thinks that the end of all flesh is
approaching, and that--"

MRS. DALE (quickly, for she prefers Miss Jemima's other hobby to
that black one upon which she is preparing to precede the bier of the
universe).--"Yes, my love, we'll avoid that subject, if you