"I should be willing to go--I think it would be quite interesting to meet some of those gentlemen--of course I don't know anything about the bill--but I really can't, don't you know. I am going to give Toddlekyns a party this afternoon, a birthday party. He is eight, and I have invited eight ladies with their dogs. The birthday cake has just come in. Isn't it lovely! I am going to have eight pink candles on it. Then Mrs. Thompson has sent me the cutest gift--eight lamb chops on a dish with a ruff of paper tied with pink ribbon around each bone. Aren't they dear! She asked me what my color scheme was, but I thought of course it was flowers. I didn't think of such a thing as a gift like this. So appropriate, wasn't it?" "Very!" returned Mrs. Pennybacker, dryly. "I have often given a plate of chops myself (with the meat removed) to the dog next door, but I have never thought of putting on the flub-dubs. I will do so when I get home. I want to go back with all the Washington kinks!" Mrs. Van Dorn looked at her suspiciously, saying, "Aunt Mary, I cannot understand your aversion to dogs." "I have no aversion to dogs. It's doglets I hate. I don't call that thing a dog. Look at him now!" Toddlekyns, put upon his feet at this moment, looked for all the world like an animated, decorated monkey muff. His silky tail was tied with a blue ribbon and a long forelock combed down over his eyes was adorned in like manner; his face and legs were lost in a mass of curling silky hair; and really it was difficult for one confronting Toddlekyns to tell whether he was in danger of a head end or rear end collision. "Now a real dog," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, reflectively, "is different. There is no more beautiful sight than a child hanging about a Scotch Collie or a big Newfoundland. A _child_ might hug a dog and I would think it was all right.... I don't wonder that a shepherd is fond of an animal that can round up sheep with the intelligence of a man. A mastiff in a back yard--one that has to be chained up to keep him from chewing up any intruder--has something almost human about him. He knows that his home is his castle. There is character about such a dog as that.... And the St. Bernards! Why, Maria, I hope I am not irreverent--when I think of those noble creatures plowing through snow and storm to rescue some poor perishing mortal, it seems to me almost a type of the Divine love that came to seek and to save the lost. It does, indeed. But it's a far cry from the monks and dogs of St. Bernard to the idle women and the poodles of the cities." "The very best people," said Mrs. Van Dorn firmly, "make much of dogs. It is the thing to do. Why, Aunt Mary, the bench shows of New York are simply immense."