386 DOLLY IN DECADENCE. 



It may seem strange, but the boding impression made on 

 Mrs. Dove by the wrong done to the favourite of her hearth 

 did not appear so greatly deepened as might have been ex- 

 pected by the blow fallen already on her master's fortune. 

 She was doubtless perfectly convinced that it had happened 

 in accordance with her prophetic augury ; but perhaps she had 

 expected worse, and was relieved, therefore, at supposing the 

 doom accomplished, and that ill luck or the offended cricket 

 had done its worst. 



Then there was another cause why Dolly's spirits bore up so 

 bravely. She was more busy than ever. Prodigious were her 

 efforts to supply to her impoverished master the deficiencies 

 which, but for them, he might have felt in his personal com- 

 forts. His dinners were dressed with double care more 

 profusely garnished, more punctually served. Not a stew-pan 

 did she suffer to grow dull in absence of the kitchen-maid, nor 

 a parlour to mourn in dust and cobwebs for the absence of the 

 housemaid. She supplied the place of all ; yet every evening 

 would see her in her cap and apron of unsullied whiteness, 

 the same respectable concierge as in better days, ready by her 

 trim exterior and cheerful aspect to baffle the speculations of 

 all curious visitors, whether to kitchen or parlour, who might 

 come to pry into their minister's altered fortunes. Ah Dolly ! 

 (Dove of our childhood's hearth and home !) thou wert a do- 

 mestic biped of a genus now well-nigh extinct gone out with 

 the dodo ; and with something, therefore, of even a naturalist's 



