e fully that he knew her to
be blind. He never sought to attract her attention by looking at her, as
he often did with other people, but touched her invariably. What
experience he could ever have had of blind people or blind dogs I don't
know. He had never lived with a blind master; nor had Mr. Boxer the
elder, nor Mrs. Boxer, nor any of his respectable family on either side,
ever been visited with blindness, that I am aware of. He may have found
it out for himself, perhaps, but he had got hold of it somehow; and
therefore he had hold of Bertha too, by the skirt, and kept hold, until
Mrs. Peerybingle and the Baby, and Miss Slowboy and the basket, were all
got safely within doors.

May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother--a little querulous
chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having
preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendent
figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of
labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had
happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been
particularly likely to come to pass--but it's all the same--was very
genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there,
doing the agreeable, with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at
home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon
on the top of the Great Pyramid.

"May! My dear old friend!" cried Dot, running up to meet her. "What a
happiness to see you!"

Her old friend was, to the full, as hearty and as glad as she; and it
really was, if you'll believe me, quite a pleasant sight to see them
embrace. Tackleton was a man of taste, beyond all question. May was very
pretty.

You know sometimes, when you are used to a pretty face, how, when it
comes into contact and comparison with another pretty face, it seems for
the moment to be homely and faded, and hardly to deserve the high
opinion you have had of it. Now, this was not at all the case, either
with Dot or May; for May's face set off Dot's, and Dot's face set off
May's, so naturally and agreeably, that, as John Peerybingle was very
near saying when he came into the room, they ought to have been born
sisters--which was the only improvement you could have suggested.

Tackleton had brought his leg of mutton, and, wonderful to relate, a
tart besides--but we don't mind a little dissipation when our brides are
in the case; we don't g