"A little dog."

"I don't much care for dogs," said Rhoda. "Mrs Vane is the one for
pets; that is, whenever they are modish. She carries dormice in her
pocket, and keeps a lapdog and a squirrel. When the mode goes out, she
gives the thing away, and gets something newer."

"Oh, dear!" said Phoebe. "I could never give my friends away."

"Oh, it is not always to friends," said Rhoda, misunderstanding her.
"She gave one of her cats to a tailor at Tewkesbury."

"But the creatures are your friends," said Phoebe. "How can you bear to
give them away?"

"Cats, and dogs, and squirrels--friends!" answered Rhoda, laughing.
"Why, Phoebe, what a droll creature you are!"

"They would be my friends," responded Phoebe.

"I vow, I'd like to see you make a friend of Mrs Vane's Cupid!"
exclaimed Rhoda, laughing. "He is the most spiteful little brute I ever
set eyes on. He thinks his teeth were made to bite everybody, and his
tail wasn't made to wag."

"Poor little thing! I don't wonder, if he has a mistress who would give
him away because it was not the mode to keep him."

"I never saw a maid so droll!" said Rhoda, still laughing; "'twill never
serve to be so mighty nice, that I can tell you. Why, you talk as if
those creatures had feelings, like we have!"

"And so they have," said Phoebe, warming up a little.

"You are mightily mistaken," returned Rhoda.

"Why do they bark, and bite, and wag their tails, then?" said Phoebe,
unanswerably. "It means something."

"Why, what does it signify if they have?" demanded Rhoda, not very
consistently. "I say, Phoebe, is that your best hood? How shabby you
go!"

"Yes," answered Phoebe, quietly.

"How much pin-money do you mean to stand for?" was Rhoda's next
startling question.

"How much what?" said astonished Phoebe, dropping the gloves she was
taking out of her trunk.

"How much pin-money will you make your husband give you?"

"I've not got one!" was Phoebe's very innocent response.

"Well, you'll have one some day, of course," said Rhoda. "I mean to
have five hundred, at least."

"Pounds?" gasped Phoebe.

"Of course!" laughed Rhoda. "I tell you, I mean to be a modish
gentlewoman, as good as ever Mrs Vane; and I'll have a knight at least.
Oh, you'll see, one of these days. I can manage Madam, when I
determine on it. Phoebe, there's the supper bell. Come on."

And quite regardless of the treasonable language in which she had just
been indulging, Rhoda