dogs, a very ideal of the species, toweringly big,
benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, disdainful of dog-fighting,
devoted to his guardian's office, with a majestic paw to give and the
noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male
enfolded about the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that
he was his new mistress's one love and darling.

She despatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian, sure of her
touch upon an Irish heart.

The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a mistress enamoured
of him. 'He is my husband,' she said to Emma, and started a tear in the
eyes of her smiling friend; 'he promises to trust me, and never to have
the law of me, and to love my friends as his own; so we are certain to
agree.' In rain, snow, sunshine, through the parks and the streets,
he was the shadow of Diana, commanding, on the whole, apart from
some desperate attempts to make him serve as introducer, a civilized
behaviour in the legions of Cupid's footpads. But he helped, innocently
enough, to create an enemy.

CHAPTER XIV. GIVING GLIMPSES OF DIANA UNDER HER CLOUD BEFORE THE WORLD
AND OF HER FURTHER APPRENTICESHIP

As the day of her trial became more closely calculable, Diana's
anticipated alarms receded with the deadening of her heart to meet the
shock. She fancied she had put on proof-armour, unconscious that it was
the turning of the inward flutterer to steel, which supplied her cuirass
and shield. The necessity to brave society, in the character of honest
Defendant, caused but a momentary twitch of the nerves. Her heart beat
regularly, like a serviceable clock; none of her faculties abandoned
her save songfulness, and none belied her, excepting a disposition to
tartness almost venomous in the sarcastic shafts she let fly at friends
interceding with Mr. Warwick to spare his wife, when she had determined
to be tried. A strange fit of childishness overcame her powers of
thinking, and was betrayed in her manner of speaking, though--to herself
her dwindled humour allowed her to appear the towering Britomart. She
pouted contemptuously on hearing that a Mr. Sullivan Smith (a remotely
recollected figure) had besought Mr. Warwick for an interview, and
gained it, by stratagem, 'to bring the man to his senses': but an
ultra-Irishman did not compromise her battle-front, as the busybody
supplications of a personal friend like Mr. Redworth did; and that the
latter, without