l her how I doted on
her, after that!

'I am sure I am very affectionate,' said Dora; 'you oughtn't to be cruel
to me, Doady!'

'Cruel, my precious love! As if I would--or could--be cruel to you, for
the world!'

'Then don't find fault with me,' said Dora, making a rosebud of her
mouth; 'and I'll be good.'

I was charmed by her presently asking me, of her own accord, to give
her that cookery-book I had once spoken of, and to show her how to keep
accounts as I had once promised I would. I brought the volume with me on
my next visit (I got it prettily bound, first, to make it look less dry
and more inviting); and as we strolled about the Common, I showed her an
old housekeeping-book of my aunt's, and gave her a set of tablets, and
a pretty little pencil-case and box of leads, to practise housekeeping
with.

But the cookery-book made Dora's head ache, and the figures made her
cry. They wouldn't add up, she said. So she rubbed them out, and drew
little nosegays and likenesses of me and Jip, all over the tablets.

Then I playfully tried verbal instruction in domestic matters, as we
walked about on a Saturday afternoon. Sometimes, for example, when we
passed a butcher's shop, I would say:

'Now suppose, my pet, that we were married, and you were going to buy a
shoulder of mutton for dinner, would you know how to buy it?'

My pretty little Dora's face would fall, and she would make her mouth
into a bud again, as if she would very much prefer to shut mine with a
kiss.

'Would you know how to buy it, my darling?' I would repeat, perhaps, if
I were very inflexible.

Dora would think a little, and then reply, perhaps, with great triumph:

'Why, the butcher would know how to sell it, and what need I know? Oh,
you silly boy!'

So, when I once asked Dora, with an eye to the cookery-book, what she
would do, if we were married, and I were to say I should like a nice
Irish stew, she replied that she would tell the servant to make it; and
then clapped her little hands together across my arm, and laughed in
such a charming manner that she was more delightful than ever.

Consequently, the principal use to which the cookery-book was devoted,
was being put down in the corner for Jip to stand upon. But Dora was so
pleased, when she had trained him to stand upon it without offering to
come off, and at the same time to hold the pencil-case in his mouth,
that I was very glad I had bought it.

And we fell back on the guitar-cas