his situation, and become less wild and more manly." "NEVER!" would be
solemnly enunciated by Annette's auditors. "As to the charge," would she
undauntedly continue, "brought against him of cruelty to the dogs under
his care, it is an abominable falsehood; Elliott may be passionate, I
don't say he is not, but he is generous and humane. _I_ have never seen
him scourge the hounds, as you tell me he does, until blood drops from
their mangled hides; _I_ have never heard the cries which, you say,
resound from their kennels day and night; cries of pain and hunger."

"And have you never seen," would ask some well-meaning tale-bearer, "any
of those poor brutes, whose wealed and mangled coats, proclaimed how
savagely they had been treated?"

"I have indeed seen," would answer Annette, "dogs lacerated by the wild
boars with which the Castle forests abound."

"And have you never observed the miserable skin-and-bone plight of my
lord's hounds?"

"They are not thinner, Charles says, than most hounds in good training:
when dogs get fat, they become lazy, lose the faculty of finding game,
and the inclination of bringing it down."

"Dogs it is true, ought not to be pampered and surfeited, but they ought
to be _fed_." Upon this, Annette would vehemently maintain that fed they
were, and amply, as she had seen Elliott cut up their meat; whilst the
friendly newsmonger would charitably hint, that her intended knew as
well as most men how to turn an _honest_ penny, by cheating the dogs of
their food, and selling it elsewhere.