I do n't know much about it . I only know that I 've been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night . It 's been blowing north-east , straight into the cart , the whole way home . '' `` Poor old man , so it has ! '' cried Mrs. Peerybingle , instantly becoming very active . `` Here , take the precious darling , Tilly , while I make myself of some use . Bless it , I could smother it with kissing it , I could ! Hie then , good dog ! Hie , Boxer , boy ! Only let me make the tea first , John ; and then I 'll help you with the parcels , like a busy bee . ` How doth the little ' -- and all the rest of it , you know , John . Did you ever learn ` How doth the little , ' when you went to school , John ? '' `` Not to quite know it , '' John returned . `` I was very near it once . But I should only have spoilt it , I dare say . '' `` Ha , ha ! '' laughed Dot . She had the blithest little laugh you ever heard . `` What a dear old darling of a dunce you are , John , to be sure ! '' Not at all disputing this position , John went out to see that the boy with the lantern , which had been dancing to and fro before the door and window , like a Will of the Wisp , took due care of the horse ; who was fatter than you would quite believe , if I gave you his measure , and so old that his birthday was lost in the mists of antiquity .
Boxer , feeling that his attentions were due XXXXX the family in general , and must be impartially distributed , dashed in and out with bewildering inconstancy ; now describing a circle of short barks round the horse , where he was being rubbed down at the stable door ; now feigning to make savage rushes at his mistress , and facetiously bringing himself to sudden stops ; now eliciting a shriek from Tilly Slowboy , in the low nursing-chair near the fire , by the unexpected application of his moist nose to her countenance ; now exhibiting an obtrusive interest in the baby ; now going round and round upon the hearth , and lying down as if he had established himself for the night ; now getting up again , and taking that nothing of a fag-end of a tail of his out into the weather , as if he had just remembered an appointment , and was off at a round trot , to keep it .
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