A goodly regiment for a bodyguard might have been selected to protect her steps in the public streets; when it was bruited that the General had sent her a present of his great Newfoundland dog, Leander, to attend on her and impose a required respect. But as it chanced that her address was unknown to the volunteer constabulary, they had to assuage their ardour by thinking the dog luckier than they.
The report of the dog was a fact. He arrived one morning at Diana's lodgings, with a soldier to lead him, and a card to introduce: — the Hercules of dogs, a very ideal of the species, toweringly big, benevolent, reputed a rescuer of lives, disdainful of dog-fighting, devoted to his guardian's office, with a majestic paw to give and the noblest satisfaction in receiving caresses ever expressed by mortal male enfolded about the head, kissed, patted, hugged, snuggled, informed that he was his new mistress's one love and darling.
She despatched a thrilling note of thanks to Lord Larrian, sure of her touch upon an Irish heart.
The dog Leander soon responded to the attachment of a mistress enamoured of him. 'He is my husband,' she said to Emma, and started a tear in the eyes of her smiling friend; 'he promises to trust me, and never to have the law of me, and to love my friends as his own; so we are certain to agree.' In rain, snow, sunshine, through the parks and the streets, he was the shadow of Diana, commanding, on the whole, apart from some desperate attempts to make him serve as introducer, a civilized behaviour in the legions of Cupid's footpads. But he helped, innocently enough, to create an enemy.

They had to eat in silence, occasionally grinning, because a woman labouring under a stigma would rattle-rattle, as if the laughter of the company were her due, and decency beneath her notice. Some one alluded to a dog of Mrs. Warwick's, whereupon she trips out a story of her dog's amazing intelligence.
"And pray," said Mrs. Cramborne Wathin across the table, merely to slip in a word, "what is the name of this wonderful dog?"
"His name is Leander," said Diana.
"Oh, Leander. I don't think I hear myself calling to a dog in a name of three syllables. Two at the most."
"No, so I call Hero! if I want him to come immediately," said Diana, and the gentlemen, to Mrs. Cramborne Wathin's astonishment, acclaimed it.

(That's a bit of a play on words: Leander, in Greek myth, was a young man who fell in love with Hero, a priestess of Aphrodite [the goddess of love]. To be with her, Leander swam across the Hellespont [a strait in Turkey, now known as the Dardanelles] every night, guided by a light Hero put in her tower. One stormy night her lamp is blown out and Leander, losing his way, drowns.)

"I was in a boat at Richmond last week, and Leander was revelling along the mud-banks, and took it into his head to swim out to me, and I was moved to take him on board. The ladies in the boat objected, for he was not only wet but very muddy. I was forced to own that their objections were reasonable. My sentimental humaneness had no argument against muslin dresses, though my dear dog's eyes appealed pathetically, and he would keep swimming after us."