Ahab was demolishing Angelina, Absalom had Agamemnon in a deadly grip.

Dog-whip in hand, Mary rushed to the rescue, and laid about her, like the knights of old, utterly forgetful of her frock.

She soon succeeded in restoring order, but the Madras muslin, the Breton lace had perished in the conflict.

She left the kennel panting, and in rags and tatters, some of the muslin and lace hanging about her in strips a yard long, but the greater part remaining in the possession of the terriers, who had mauled and munched her finery to their hearts' content, while she was reading the Riot Act.
She went back to the house, bowed down by shame and confusion, and marched straight to the dowager's morning-room.
'Look what the terriers have done to me, grandmother,' she said, with a sob.

'It is all my own fault, of course.