the tawny dog bayed, bellowed, bowled at him, and a group of servants came bundling from the kitchen. The dog made a spring; the second gentleman turned tail and rushed after his comrade: the first was already safe in a bed-room: he held the door against his fellow;—nothing so merciless as terror;—but the other fugitive struggled hard: the door was about to yield to his strength.
"Gentlemen," was uttered in Miss Keeldar's silvery but vibrating tones, "spare my locks, if you please. Calm yourselves!—come down! Look at Tartar,—he won't harm a cat."
She was caressing the said Tartar: he lay crouched at her feet, his fore-paws stretched out, his tail still in threatening agitation, his nostrils snorting, his bull-dog eyes conscious of a dull fire. He was an honest, phlegmatic, stupid, but stubborn canine character: he loved his mistress, and John—the man who fed him,—but was mostly indifferent to the rest of the world: quiet enough he was, unless struck or threatened with a stick, and that put a demon into him at once.
"Mr. Malone, how do you do?" continued Shirley, lifting up her mirth-lit face to the gallery. "That is not the way to the oak-parlour: that is Mrs. Pryor's apartment. Request your friend Mr. Donne to evacuate: I shall have the greatest pleasure in receiving him in a lower room."
"Ha! ha!" cried Malone, in hollow laughter, quitting the door, and leaning over the massive
