The dog, who had stood looking in his master’s face all the time he spoke, wagged his tail faster.
“What a name to give a dog! Where did you find it?”
“In Paradise Lost, ma’am. Abdiel was the one angel, you remember, ma’am, who, when he saw what Satan was up to, left him, and went back to his duty.”
“And what was his duty?”
“Why of course to do what God told him. I love Abdiel, and because I love the little dog and he took care of baby, I call him Abdiel too. Heaven is so far off that it makes no confusion to have the same name.”
“But how dare you give the name of an angel to a dog?”
“To a good dog, ma’am! A good dog is good enough to go with any angel—at his heels of course! If he had been a bad dog, it would have been wicked to name him after a good angel. If the dog had been Tommy—I mean if Tommy had been the dog, I should have had to call him Moloch, or Belzebub! God made the angels and the dogs; and if the dogs are good, God loves them.—Don’t he, Abdiel?”
Abdiel assented after his usual fashion. The lady said nothing. Clare went on.
“Abdiel won’t mind—the angel Abdiel, I mean, ma’am—he won’t mind lending his name to my friend. The dog will have a name of his own, perhaps, some day—like the rest of us!”
“What is your name?”