The lady's eyes still followed
me.

"I beg your pardon, Mrs. Morris," she said, "but that is a very
queer-looking dog you have there."

"Yes," said Mrs. Morris, quietly; "he is not a handsome dog."

"And he is a new one, isn't he?" said Mrs. Montague.

"Yes."

"And that makes."

"Two dogs, a cat, fifteen or twenty rabbits, a rat, about a dozen
canaries, and two dozen goldfish, I don't know how many pigeons, a few
bantams, a guinea pig, and well, I don't think there is anything more."

They both laughed, and Mrs. Montague said: "You have quite a menagerie.
My father would never allow one of his children to keep a pet animal.
He said it would make his girls rough and noisy to romp about the house
with cats, and his boys would look like rowdies if they went about with
dogs at their heels."

"I have never found that it made my children more rough to play with
their pets," said Mrs. Morris.

"No, I should think not," said the lady, languidly. "Your boys are the
most gentlemanly lads in Fairport, and as for Laura, she is a perfect
little lady. I like so much to have them come and see Charlie. They wake
him up, and yet don't make him naughty."

"They enjoyed their last visit very much," said Mrs. Morris. "By the
way, I have heard them talking about getting Charlie a dog."

"Oh!" cried the lady, with a little shudder, "beg them not to. I cannot
sanction that. I hate dogs."

"Why do you hate them?" asked Mrs. Morris gently.

"They are such dirty things; they always smell and have vermin on them."

"A dog," said Mrs. Morris, "is something like a child. If you want it
clean and pleasant, you have got to keep it so. This dog's skin is as
clean as yours or mine. Hold still, Joe," and she brushed the hair on my
back the wrong way, and showed Mrs. Montague how pink and free from dust
my skin was.

Mrs. Montague looked at me more kindly, and even held out the tips of
her fingers to me. I did not lick them. I only smelled them, and she
drew her hand back again.

"You have never been brought in contact with the lower creation as I
have," said Mrs. Morris; "just let me tell you, in a few words, what a
help dumb animals have been to me in the up-bringing of my children
my boys, especially. When I was a young married woman, going about the
slums of New York with my husband, I used to come home and look at my
two babies as they lay in their little cots, and say to him, 'What are
we going to do to keep these children from