"Sylvia!"
"Yes, papa."
"That infernal dog of yours----"
"Oh, papa!"
"Yes, that infernal dog of yours has been at my carnations again!"

Colonel Reynolds, V.C., glared sternly across the table at Miss Sylvia
Reynolds, and Miss Sylvia Reynolds looked in a deprecatory manner back
at Colonel Reynolds, V.C.; while the dog in question--a foppish
pug--happening to meet the colonel's eye in transit, crawled
unostentatiously under the sideboard, and began to wrestle with a bad
conscience.

"Oh, naughty Tommy!" said Miss Reynolds mildly, in the direction of
the sideboard.

"Yes, my dear," assented colonel; "and if you could convey to him
the information that if he does it once more--yes, just once more!--I
shall shoot him on spot you would be doing him a kindness." And
the colonel bit a large crescent out of his toast, with all energy
and conviction of a man who has thoroughly made up his mind. "At six
o'clock this morning," continued he, in a voice of gentle melancholy,
"I happened to look out of my bedroom window, and saw him. He had then
destroyed two of my best plants, and was commencing on a third, with
every appearance of self-satisfaction. I threw two large brushes and a
boot at him."

"Oh, papa! They didn't hit him?"

"No, my dear, they did not. brushes missed him by several yards,
and boot smashed a fourth carnation. However, I was so fortunate
as to attract his attention, and he left off."

"I can't think what makes him do it. I suppose it's bones. He's got
bones buried all over garden."

"Well, if he does it again, you'll find that there will be a few more
bones buried in garden!" said the colonel grimly; and he subsided
into his paper.

Sylvia loved dog partly for its own sake, but principally for that
of the giver, one Reginald Dallas, whom it had struck at an early
period of their acquaintance that he and Miss Sylvia Reynolds were
made for one another. On communicating this discovery to Sylvia
herself he had found that her views upon subject were identical
with his own; and all would have gone well had it not been for a
melancholy accident.

One day while out shooting with the colonel, with whom he was doing
his best to ingratiate himself, with a view to obtaining his consent
to match, he had allowed his sporting instincts to carry him away
to such a degree that, in sporting parlance, he wiped his eye badly.
Now, the colonel prided himself with justice on his powers as a shot;
but on this particular day he had a touch of liver, which resulted in
his shooting over the birds, and under birds, and on each side of
the birds, but very rarely at birds. Dallas being in especially
good