gets home he turns round on the doorstep and snaps at the servants. I
think it must be his fun. You should see him sitting up in his chair at
dinner-time, waiting to be helped, with his fore paws on the edge of the
table, like the hands of a gentleman at a public dinner making a speech.
But, oh!" cried Isabel, checking herself, with the tears in her eyes,
"how can I talk of him in this way when he is so dreadfully ill! Some of
them say it's bronchitis, and some say it's his liver. Only yesterday I
took him to the front door to give him a little air, and he stood still
on the pavement, quite stupefied. For the first time in his life, he
snapped at nobody who went by; and, oh, dear, he hadn't even the heart
to smell a lamp-post!"

Isabel had barely stated this last afflicting circumstance when
the memoirs of Tommie were suddenly cut short by the voice of Lady
Lydiard--really calling this time--from the inner room.

"Isabel! Isabel!" cried her Ladyship, "what are you about?"

Isabel ran to the door of the boudoir and threw it open. "Go in, sir!
Pray go in!" she said.

"Without you?" Hardyman asked.

"I will follow you, sir. I have something to do for her Ladyship first."

She still held the door open, and pointed entreatingly to the passage
which led to the boudoir "I shall be blamed, sir," she said, "if you
don't go in."

This statement of the case left Hardyman no alternative. He presented