I’m certain my fair readers will allow that some little credit was due to me for the command I had over my temper throughout this trying occasion--especially when I tell them that do what I would, I never could keep the fleas out of that Carlo’s beautiful coat, so that no wonder my little cherub of a Kitty was so restless the night after that dog had been rolled up in one of her blankets. When I went to dress her in the morning, I declare if the beautiful white skin of the angel wasn’t covered all over with large red spots, for all the world like the sixpenny wooden horse I had bought her for a toy. Nor did the annoyance stop here, for, being accustomed to take the little thing into our bed of a morning, to play with her--goodness gracious me! if Edward and myself were not quite as much tormented with the nasty lively irritating things, as even little Kitty had been, so that really and truly we couldn’t for the life of us get what I call a nice comfortable night’s rest for weeks afterwards. Even if I had felt inclined to bear with the miserable girl’s wretched stupidity, still her abominable love of gossiping was quite enough to make any respectable, quiet, well-disposed lady, like myself, take her by the ears and bundle her into the streets. Though, of course, her chattering gossip wasn’t to be wondered at, for we all know that empty barrels make the greatest noise, and her head was so empty, that I declare she would make noise enough for fifty women, and talk fourteen to the dozen any day; for, without exaggeration, her tongue was so long that it was impossible for her to keep it between her teeth. If the butcher-boy came with the joint, there she would stand gossiping at the area-gate, wasting her own time and the boy’s too. When the baker brought the bread, it was just the same; or even if it was that little chit from the green-grocer, it made no difference to her. Though what the dickens an empty-headed thing, like she was, could have to say to them all, I never could make out. While as for the servants in the neighbourhood, I declare she was bosom friends with the whole street. If I didn’t keep my eye upon her every moment of the day, off she’d be, out in the garden, chattering away over the wall, either with the housemaid at the Tomlins’s, on the right, or with the cook at the Allen’s, on the left, or with that impudent monkey of a footman at the Simmons’s, at the back. And as for a morning, when she was pretending to be cleaning down that door-step, I do think, if I had to ring once, I had to ring a dozen times for Edward’s hot water to shave with. Of course, she couldn’t hear the bell--how could she?--when she was gossiping away with the next doors, putting a lot of tales about the neighbourhood, all against me, as I felt convinced she was? For positively the maids on both sides of us knew just as much about my affairs as I did myself; and I’m sure, that even if she had lived at the Tomlins’s or the Allen’s, she