"The soul, my dear Miss Kitty "--began the lawyer, facing round upon
her.
"Don't say anything dreadful about the soul, sir, I beg," said Miss
Betty, firmly. And then she added in a conciliatory tone, "Won't you
look at the little fellow, sir? I have no doubt his relations are
shocking people; but when you see his innocent little face and his
beautiful eyes, I think you'll say yourself that if he were a duke's son
he couldn't be a finer child."
"My experience of babies is so limited, Miss Betty," said the lawyer,
"that really--if you'll excuse me--but I can quite imagine him. I have
before now been tempted myself to adopt stray--puppies, when I have seen
them in the round, soft, innocent, bright-eyed stage. And when they have
grown up in the hands of more credulous friends into lanky,
ill-conditioned, misconducted curs, I have congratulated myself that I
was not misled by the graces of an age at which ill-breeding is less
apparent than later in life."
The little ladies both rose. "If you see no difference, sir," said Miss
Betty in her stateliest manner, "between a babe with an immortal soul
and the beasts that perish, it is quite useless to prolong the
conversation."
"Reason is apt to be useless when opposed to the generous impulses of a
sex so full of sentiment as yours, madam," said the lawyer, rising also.
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