Dogs Always Know
INTO THIS DIGNIFIED LOVE STORY HUGE CAPTAIN MACGREGOR
BARGES WITH A GRAND CARGO OF HUMOR TO
MATCH LITTLE LEROY’S DRAMATIC DOG
By Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
The lovely little Miss Selby came from Boston, and the large and not
unhandsome Mr. Anderson came from New York, and they did not like each
other.
Indeed, Miss Selby was not very fond, just then, of any one who did
not come from Boston. Sometimes she even went so far as to declare to
herself that she did not like any one at all except the members of one
certain household in Boston.
It was at night, after she had gone to bed, that she usually made this
somewhat narrow-minded declaration, because it was at that time, when
she was lying in the dark, that she would most vividly imagine that
especial household. Her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts;
they were the kindest, wittiest, most delightful, lovable people who
ever breathed, and she compared all other persons with them. And, so
compared, Mr. Anderson came out very badly.
As for Mr. Anderson, the reason he did not like Miss Selby was because
she obviously did not like him. He was a little sensitive about being
liked.
He almost always had been, in the past, and when he saw Miss Selby’s
eyes resting on him, with that look which meant that she was mentally
comparing him with her mother, her grandmother, and her two aunts, he
felt chilled to the bone. Not that he looked chilled; on the contrary,
his face grew red, and he fancied that his neck, his ears, and his
hands did also.
He justly resented this. It was not his fault that he was sitting at
her table. It wasn’t her table, anyhow; purely by luck had she sat
alone at it so long. It was the only place left in the dining room,
and the landlady told him to sit there.
As he pulled out his chair he said, “Good evening,” with a friendly
and unsuspicious smile, and Miss Selby glanced up at him as if she
were surprised to hear a human voice issuing from this creature, and
bent her head in something probably intended to be a nod.
Naturally, he did not speak again. But, as he sat facing her, and with
his back to the room, he could not help his eyes resting upon her from
time to time, and it was then that he had encountered that chilly
look.
It was very pitiful, he thought, to see one as young as she behaving
in such a way—really pitiful. Because she was not unattractive; even a
casual glance had informed him of that.
Dark-browed, she was, and dark-eyed; but with hair that was bright and
soft and almost blond, and a lovely rose color in her cheeks; the sort
of girl a man would admire, if there had been the true womanly
gentleness in her aspect. But after that look, it was impossible to
admire; he could only pity.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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