dogs, when they've got the notion of dinner in their heads. A
friend of mine had a very fine animal--just such another as poor Beauty
there--she had always been accustomed, like Beauty, to attend the family
to dinner at a particular hour; but one day, by some accident, instead of
sitting down at five, she was kept waiting till half-past six; the
consequence was, the disappointment, operating upon an empty
stomach, brought on an attack of the hydrophobia, and the poor thing was
obliged to be shot the following morning. I think your Lordship
said--Dinner," in a loud voice to the servant; and Lady Juliana, though
still sullen, did not dissent.

For an hour the Doctor's soul was in a paradise still more substantial
than a Turk's; for it was lapt in the richest of soups and _ragouts_,
and, secure of their existence, it smiled at ladies of quality, and
deified their lap-dogs.

Dinner passed away, and supper succeeded, and breakfast; dinner and
supper revolved, and still no Lord Lindore appeared. But this excited no
alarm in the family. It was Lord Courtland's way, and it was Lady
Juliana's way, and it was all their ways, not to keep to their appointed
time, and they therefore experienced none of the vulgar consternation
incident to common minds when the expected guest fails to appear. Lady
Emily indeed wondered, and was provoked, and impatient; but she was not
alarmed; and Mary amused herself with contrasting in her own mind the
difference of her aunts' feelings in similar circumstances.

"Dear Aunt Grizzy would certainly have been in tears these two days,
fancying the thousand deaths Lord Lindore must have died; and Aunt Jacky
would have been inveighing from morning till night against the
irregularities of young men. And Aunt Nicky would have been lamenting
that the black cock had been roasted yesterday, or that there would be
no fish for to-morrow." And the result of Mary's comparison was, that
her aunts' feelings, however troublesome, were better than no feelings
at all. "They are, to be sure, something like brambles," thought she;
"they fasten upon one in every possible way, but still they are better
than the faded exotics of fashionable life."

At last, on the third day, when dinner was nearly over, and Dr. Redgill
was about to remark for the third time, "I think it's as well we didn't
wait for Lord Lindore," the door opened, and, without warning or bustle,
Lord Lindore walked calmly into the room.

Lady Emily, utt