“That amounts to the same thing, does it not?”

She shook her head.

“Your impression is, that I will not please to do exactly right?”

“I have not said so, sir.”

“Your eyes are very brave honest witnesses, and need no support from your lips.  Suppose we enter into negotiations and compromise matters between Mrs. Palma and you?  This troublesome dog is a pestiferous creature, which might possibly be tolerated in country clover fields, but is most woefully out of place in a Fifth Avenue house.  Beside, you will soon be a young lady, and your beaux will leave you no leisure to pet him.  You are fifteen?”

“Not yet; and if I were fifty it would make no difference.  I don’t want any beaux, sir; but—­I must have my Hero.”

“Of course, all misses in their teens believe that their favourite is a hero.”

“Mr. Palma, Hero is my dog’s name.”

He could detect a quiver in her slender nostril, and understood the heightening arch of her lip.

“Oh! is it indeed?  Well, no dog that ever barked is worth a household hurricane.  You must make up your mind to surrender him, to shed a few tears and say vale Hero!  Now I am disposed to be generous for once, though understand that is not my habit, and I will buy him.  I will pay you—­let me see—­thirty-five, forty—­well, say fifty dollars?  That will supply you with Maillard’s bonbons for almost a year; will sweeten your bereavement.”

She rose instantly, with a peculiar sparkle leaping up in her splendid eyes.

“There is not gold enough in New York to buy him.”

“What!  I must see this surly brute, that in your estimation is beyond all price.  Tell me truly, do you cling to him so fondly, because some schoolboy sweetheart, some rosy-cheeked lad in V——­ gave him to you as a love token?  Trust me; we lawyers are locked iron safes for all such tender secrets, and I will never betray yours.”

The rich glow overflowed her cheeks once more.

“I have no sweetheart.  I love my Hero, because he is truly noble and sagacious; because he loves me, and because he is mine—­all mine.”

“Truly satisfactory and sufficient reasons.  I might ask how he came into your possession; but probably you shrink from divulging your little secret, and I am unwilling to force your confidence.”

She looked curiously into his face, but the handsome mouth and chin might have been chiselled in stone for any visible alteration in their fixed stern expression, and his piercing black eyes seemed diving into hers through microscopic glasses.

“At least, Regina, I venture the hope that he came properly and honestly into your heart and hands?”

“I hope so too, because you gave him to me.”

“I?”

“Yes, sir.  You know perfectly well that you sent him to me.”

“I sent you a dog?  When?  Is he black, brown, striped, or spotted?”