diant in the morning light, took the contrariness
from her words.

"I agree that it's the worst one can possibly say of any one," said
Clarissa. "How much rather one would be a murderer than a bore!" she
added, with her usual air of saying something profound. "One can fancy
liking a murderer. It's the same with dogs. Some dogs are awful bores,
poor dears."

It happened that Richard was sitting next to Rachel. She was curiously
conscious of his presence and appearance--his well-cut clothes, his
crackling shirt-front, his cuffs with blue rings round them, and the
square-tipped, very clean fingers with the red stone on the little
finger of the left hand.

"We had a dog who was a bore and knew it," he said, addressing her in
cool, easy tones. "He was a Skye terrier, one of those long chaps, with
little feet poking out from their hair like--like caterpillars--no, like
sofas I should say. Well, we had another dog at the same time, a black
brisk animal--a Schipperke, I think, you call them. You can't imagine
a greater contrast. The Skye so slow and deliberate, looking up at
you like some old gentleman in the club, as much as to say, 'You don't
really mean it, do you?' and the Schipperke as quick as a knife. I liked
the Skye best, I must confess. There was something pathetic about him."

The story seemed to have no climax.

"What happened to him?" Rachel asked.

"That's a very sad story," said Richard, lowering his voice and peeling
an apple. "He followed my wife in the car one day and got run over by a
brute of a cyclist."

"Was he killed?" asked Rachel.

But Clarissa at her end of the table had overheard.

"Don't talk of it!" she cried. "It's a thing I can't bear to think of to
this day."

Surely the tears stood in her eyes?

"That's the painful thing about pets," said Mr. Dalloway; "they die. The
first sorrow I can remember was for the death of a dormouse. I regret to
say that I sat upon it. Still, that didn't make one any the less sorry.
Here lies the duck that Samuel Johnson sat on, eh? I was big for my
age."

"Then we had canaries," he continued, "a pair of ring-doves, a lemur,
and at one time a martin."

"Did you live in the country?" Rachel asked him.

"We lived in the country for six months of the year. When I say 'we' I
mean four sisters, a brother, and myself. There's nothing like coming of
a large family. Sisters particularly are delightful."

"Dick, you were horribly spoilt!" cried Clarissa acro