“What is your Christian name?”
“That is my Christian name, ma’am—Clare.”
“Then what is your surname?”
“I am called Porson, ma’am, but I have another name. Mr. Porson adopted me.”
“What is your other name?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I am going to know one day, I think; but the day is not come yet.”
He told her all he could about his adoptive parents, and little Maly; but the time before he went to the farm was growing strangely dreamlike, as if it had sunk a long way down in the dark waters of the past—all up to the hour when Maly was carried away by the long black aunt.
The story accounted to Miss Tempest both for his good speech and the name of his dog. The adopted child of a clergyman might well be acquainted with Paradise Lost, though she herself had never read more of it than the apostrophe to Light in the beginning of the third book! That she had learned at school without understanding phrase or sentence of it; while Clare never left passage alone until he understood it, or, failing that, had invented a meaning for it.
“Well, then, Clare, I’ve been talking to my gardener about you,” said Miss Tempest. “He will give you a job.”
“God bless you, ma’am! I’m ready!” cried Clare, stretching out his arms, as if to get them to the proper length for work. “Where shall I find him?”