If you see a church contest, or a company of unsanctified females overhauling each other's good name until there is nothing left of them but a broken hoop skirt and one curl of back hair, you had better stand clear.

Once go in, and your own character will be an invitation to their muzzles.

Nick's long, clean ear was a temptation to all the teeth.

You will have enough battles of your own, without getting a loan of conflicts at twenty per cent a month.
Every time since the unfortunate struggle I have described, when Nick and I take a country walk and pass a dog fight, he comes close up by my side, and looks me in the eye with one long wipe of the tongue over his chops, as much as to say, "Easier to get into a fight than to get out of it.

Better jog along our own way;" and then I preach him a short sermon from Proverbs xxvi.