“Abdiel can be hungry and not greedy,” answered Clare, and the young woman was silent.
Miss Tempest and Mrs. Mereweather had all this time been turning over the question of what was to be done with the strange boy. They agreed it was too bad that anyone willing to work should be prevented from earning even a day’s victuals by the bad temper of a gardener. But his mistress did not want to send the man away. She had found him scrupulously honest, as is many a bad-tempered man, and she did not like changes. The cook on her part had taken such a fancy to Clare that she did not want him set to garden-work; she would have him at once into the house, and begin training him for a page. Now Miss Tempest was greatly desiring the same thing, but in dread of what the cook would say, and was delighted, therefore, when the first suggestion of it came from Mrs. Mereweather herself. The only obstacle in the cook’s eyes was that same long, spectral dog. The boy could not be such a fool, however,—she said, not being a lover of animals—as let a wretched beast like that come betwixt him and a good situation!
“It’s all right, Clare,” said Mrs. Mereweather, entering her queendom so radiant within that she could not repress the outshine of her pleasure. “Mis’ess an’ me, we’ve arranged it all. You’re to help me in the kitchen; an’ if you can do what you’re told, an’ are willin’ to learn, we’ll soon get you out of your troubles. There’s but one thing in the way.”
“What is it, please?” asked Clare.
“The dog, of course! You must part with the dog.”
“That I cannot do,” returned Clare quietly, but with countenance fallen and sorrowful. “—Come, Abdiel!”
The dog started up, every hair of him full of electric vitality.
“You don’t mean you’re going to walk yourself off in such a beastly ungrateful fashion—an’ all for a miserable cur!” exclaimed the cook.
“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.”