Eva had just been talking to this effect to Mary in the kitchen, and she came back into her parlor, to find there poor, fluttering, worried little Mrs. Betsey Benthusen, who had come in to bewail her prodigal son, of whom, for now three days and nights, no tidings had been heard.
"I came in to ask you, dear Mrs. Henderson, if anything has been heard from the advertising of Jack? I declare, I haven't been able to sleep since he went, I am so worried. I dare say you must think it silly of me," she said, wiping her eyes, "but I am just so silly. I really had got so fond of him—I feel so lonesome without him." "Silly, dear friend!" said Eva in her usual warm, impulsive way, "no, indeed; I think it's perfectly natural that you should feel as you do. I think, for my part, these poor dumb pets were given us to love; and if we do love them, we can't help feeling anxious about them when they are gone."
"You see," said Mrs. Betsey, "if I only knew—but I don't—if I knew just where he was, or if he was well treated; but then, Jack is a dog that has been used to kindness, and it would come hard to him to have to suffer hunger and thirst, and be kicked about and abused. I lay and thought about things that might happen to him, last night, till I fairly cried"—and the tears stood in the misty blue eyes of the faded little old gentlewoman, in attestation of the possibility. "I got so wrought up," she continued, "that I actually prayed to my Heavenly Father to take care of my poor Jack. Do you think that was profane, Mrs. Henderson?—I just could not help it."
"No, dear Mrs. Betsey, I don't think it was profane; I think it was just the most sensible thing you could do. You know our Saviour says that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our Father, and I'm sure Jack is a good deal larger than a sparrow."
"Well, I didn't tell Dorcas," said Mrs. Betsey, "because she thinks I'm foolish, and I suppose I am. I'm a broken-up old woman now, and I never had as much strength of mind as Dorcas, anyway. Dorcas has a very strong mind," said little Mrs. Betsey in a tone of awe; "she has tried all she could to strengthen mine, but she can't do much with me."
Just at this instant, Eva, looking through the window down street, saw Jim Fellows approaching, with Jack's head appearing above his shoulder in that easy, jaunty attitude with which the restored lamb is represented in a modern engraving of the Good Shepherd.
There he sat, to be sure, with a free and easy air of bright, doggish vivacity; perched aloft with his pink tongue hanging gracefully out of his mouth, and his great, bright eyes and little black tip of a nose gleaming out from the silvery thicket of his hair, looking anything but penitent for all the dismays and sorrows of which he had been the cause.
"Oh, Mrs. Betsey, do come here," cried Eva; "here is Jack, to be sure!"
"You don't say so! Why, so he is; that dear, good Mr. Fellows! how can I ever thank him enough!"
And, as Jim mounted the steps, Eva hastened to open the door in anticipation of the door-bell.