AustLit

Author's note: Well do I remember, unlucky dog that I ever was, and am, the occasion of the above 'queer comparison.' My Dulcenia of that time (and it is a long time ago) was doing the amiable at a party of neighbours, sufficiently inferior in worldly position to allow of her enacting amongst them, in her own fancy at least, the lady Bountiful of the Castle. With what a prettily conscious sleekness did she hold herself up, and altogether as it were, in the affably exclusive mode; entirely at their service for the occasion, and yet so completely herself - so all-there-ish: picking her steps out, at the same time, as she paced to and fro, so choicefully, delicately, dippingly; or with one little foot daintily suspended as she paused, or turned, or bent forward. Whoever had seen all this, and has seen, also, the same day- as I had unluckily - a crow in a partially wet gutter looking for worms, with an air and step so sleek and choice - so held together, nice, judicious; as though he were half afraid that the blobs of water lying here and there would either bite his toes or scald his plumage, and yet regarding them, for their worminess, and from a polite attention to his own interest, somewhat graciously; whoever had seen that as well, could in nowise have prevented such a past circumstance from being suggestively recalled by the one described above as subsequently passing; no, not at the risk of his being hanged for it! But the joke was never forgiven. It was too black.