injuriously at an immense butcher's dog in the street, who could have taken him like a pill.
Dora came to the drawing-room door to meet me; and Jip came scrambling out, tumbling over his own growls, under the impression that I was a Bandit; and we all three went in, as happy and loving as could be. I soon carried desolation into the bosom of our joys—not that I meant to do it, but that I was so full of the subject—by asking Dora, without the smallest preparation, if she could love a beggar?
My pretty, little, startled Dora! Her only association with the word was a yellow face and a nightcap, or a pair of crutches, or a wooden leg, or a dog with a decanter-stand in his mouth, or something of that kind; and she stared at me with the most delightful wonder.
"How can you ask me anything so foolish!" pouted Dora. "Love a beggar!"
"Dora, my own dearest!" said I. "I am a beggar!"
"How can you be such a silly thing," replied Dora, slapping my hand, "as to sit there, telling such stories? I'll make Jip bite you!"
Her childish way was the most delicious way in the world to me, but it was necessary to be explicit, and I solemnly repeated:
"Dora, my own life, I am your ruined David!"
"I declare I'll make Jip bite you!" said Dora, shaking her curls, "if you are so ridiculous."
But I looked so serious, that Dora left off shaking her curls, and laid her trembling little hand upon my shoulder, and first looked scared and anxious, then began to cry. That was dreadful. I fell upon my knees before the sofa, caressing her, and imploring her not to rend my heart; but, for some time, poor little Dora did nothing but exclaim Oh dear! oh dear! And oh, she was so frightened! And where was Julia Mills! And oh, take her to Julia Mills, and go away, please! until I was almost beside myself.
At last, after an agony of supplication and protestation, I got Dora to look at me, with a horrified expression of face, which I gradually soothed until it was only loving, and her soft, pretty cheek was lying against mine. Then I told her, with my arms clasped round her, how I loved her, so dearly, and so dearly; how I felt it right to offer to release her from her engagement, because now I was poor; how I never could bear it, or recover it, if I lost her; how I had no fears of poverty, if she had none, my arm being nerved and my heart inspired by her; how I was already working with a courage such as none but lovers knew; how I had begun to be practical, and to look into the future; how a crust well earned was sweeter far than a feast inherited; and much more to the same purpose, which I delivered in a burst of passionate eloquence quite surprising to myself, though I had been thinking about it, day and night, ever since my aunt had astonished me.
"Is your heart mine still, dear Dora?" said I, rapturously, for I knew by her clinging to me that it was.
"Oh, yes!" cried Dora. "Oh, yes, it's all yours. Oh, don't be dreadful!"
I dreadful! To Dora!
"Don't talk about being poor, and working hard!" said Dora, nestling closer to me. "Oh, don't, don't!"
"My dearest love," said I, "the crust well-earned—"
