“Well, ma’am,” said Clare, “if you and Mr. Halliwell are of one mind, nothing would please me so much as to serve you and the beasts. But I should like to be sure about it, for where husband and wife are not of one mind--well, it is uncomfortable!” Thereupon he told her how he had stood with the farmer and his wife; and from that she led him on through his whole story--not unaccompanied with tears on the part of his deliverer, for she was a tender-souled as well as generous and friendly woman. In her heart she rejoiced to think that the boy’s sufferings would now be at an end; and thenceforward she was, as he always called her, his third mother. “My poor, ill-used child!” she said. “But I’ll be a mother to you--if you’ll have me!” “You wouldn’t mind if I thought rather often of my two other mothers, ma’am--would you?” he said. “God forbid, boy!” she answered. “If I were your real mother, would I have my own flesh and blood ungrateful? Should I be proud of him for loving nobody but me? That’s like the worst of the beasts: they love none but their little ones--and that only till they’re tired of the trouble of them!” “Thank you! Then I will be your son Clare, please, ma’am.” The next time they stopped, she made her husband come into her caravan, and then and there she would and did have everything arranged. When both her husband and the boy would have left his wages undetermined, she would not hear of it, but insisted that so much a week should be fixed at once to begin with. She had no doubt, she said, that her husband would soon be ready enough to raise his wages; but he must have his food and five shillings a week now, and Mr. Halliwell must advance money to get him decent clothes: he might keep the wages till the clothes were paid for! Everything she wished was agreed to by her husband, and at the next town, Clare’s new mother saw him dressed to her satisfaction, and to his own. She would have his holiday clothes better than his present part in life required, and she would not let his sovereign go toward paying for them: that she would keep ready in case he might want it! Her eyes followed him about with anxious pride--as if she had been his mother in fact as she was in truth. He had at once plenty to do. The favour of his mother saved him from no kind of work, neither had he any desire it should. Every morning he took his share in cleaning out the cages, and in setting water for the beasts, and food for the birds and such other creatures as took it when they pleased. At the proper intervals he fed as many as he might of those animals that had stated times for their meals; and found the advantage of this in its facilitating his friendly approaches to them. He helped with the horses also--with whose harness and ways he was already familiar. In a very short time he was known as a friend by every civilized animal in and about the caravans.