"How dare you say such things about him!" I smiled and took both her hands--one of them held a piece of brown bread-and-butter.
"My dear," said I, "model yourself on Little Bo-Peep.

I don't know who gave her the famous bit of advice, but I think it was I myself in a pastoral incarnation.

I had a woolly cloak and a crook, and she was like a Dresden china figure--the image of you." Her eyes swam, but she laughed and said I was good to her.

I said: "The man who wouldn't be good to you is an unhung villain." Then her mother joined us, and our little confidential talk came to an end.

It was enough, however, to convince me that my poor little Ariadne was shedding many desperate tears in secret over her desertion.
On my way home I looked in on my doctor.