“The lady has been most kind to us, and we’re grateful to her, and ready to work for her if she will let us;--ain’t we, Abdiel? But Abdiel has done far more for me than Miss Tempest! To part with Abdiel, and leave him to starve, or get into bad company, would be sheer ingratitude. I should be a creature such as Miss Tempest ought to have nothing to do with: I might serve her as that young butler I told her of! It’s just as bad to be ungrateful to a dog as to any other person. Besides, he wouldn’t leave me. He would be always hanging about.” “John would soon knock him on the head.” “Would he, Abdiel?” said Clare. The dog looked up in his master’s face with such a comical answer in his own, that the cook burst out laughing, and began to like Abdiel. “But you don’t really mean to say,” she persisted, “that you’d go off again on the tramp, to be as cold and hungry again to-morrow as you were yesterday--and all for the sake of a dog? A dog ain’t a Christian!” “Abdiel’s more of a Christian than some I know,” answered Clare: “he does what his master tells him.” “There’s something in that!” said the cook. “If I parted with Abdiel, I could never hold up my head among the angels,” insisted Clare. “Think what harm it might do him! He could trust nobody after, his goodness might give way! He might grow worse than Tommy!--No; I’ve got to take care of Abdiel, and Abdiel’s got to take care of me!--Ain’t you, Abby?” “We can’t have him here in the kitchen nohow!” said the cook in relenting tone. “Poor fellow!” said the housemaid kindly. The dog turned to her and wagged his tail. “What wouldn’t I give for a lover like that!” said the housemaid--but whether of Clare or the dog I cannot say. “I know what I shall do!” cried Clare, in sudden resolve. “I will ask Miss Tempest to have him up-stairs with her, and when she is tired of either of us, we will go away together.” “A probable thing!” returned the cook. “A lady like Miss Tempest with a dog like that about her! She’d be eaten up alive with fleas! In ten minutes she would!” “No fear of that!” rejoined Clare. “Abdiel catches all his _own_ fleas!--Don’t you, Abby?” The dog instantly began to burrow in his fell of hair--an answer which might be taken either of two ways: it might indicate comprehension and corroboration of his master, or the necessity for a fresh hunt. The women laughed, much amused. “Look here!” said Clare. “Let me have a tub of water--warm, if you please--he likes that: I tried him once, passing a factory, where a lot of it was running to waste. Then, with the help of a bit of soap, I’ll show you a body of hair to astonish you.” “What breed is he?” asked the housemaid. “He’s all the true breeds under the sun, I fancy,” returned his master; “but the most of him seems of the sky-blue terrier sort.”