"Poor thing!" said Miss Lavinia. "Well, see that he has all he can eat, Mitchell. Of course, I must advertise for his owner—you're sure he doesn't belong to any one in the village?"
"I'm certain he doesn't, ma'am!" replied Mitchell. "There isn't another pig in Little St. Peter's as thin as what he is. Nor in Great St. Peter's, neither, ma'am," he added as by an afterthought.
"Well, as his former owner, or owners, seems to have neglected him," said Miss Lavinia with severe firmness, "I shall feed him well before advertising that he is found. So see to it, Mitchell. And by the bye, Mitchell, don't you think he is very dirty?"
Mitchell eyed the pig over. His glance was expressive.
"I think he must have been sleeping out, ma'am," he replied. "When an animal's homeless it gets neglected shocking."
"Couldn't you wash him, Mitchell?" suggested Miss Lavinia. "I'm sure it would do him good."
Mitchell stroked his chin.
"Well, ma'am," he said, "I never heard of a pig being washed unless it was for show or after it had been killed, ma'am, but I dare say I could, ma'am. As soon as I've an hour to spare, ma'am," he continued, "I'll get my son to help me, and we'll have some hot water and turn the biggest hosepipe on him in the little yard—I'll get it off him, ma'am!"
Miss Lavinia cordially approved this proposition and went away, and Mitchell remarked to himself that no man ever knew what a day might not bring forth, and went to smoke in the loneliest part of the garden. Later in the afternoon he and his son performed the pig's ablutions, and the junior Mitchell, remarking that it was no use doing things by halves, got a stout scrubbing-brush from the scullery and so successfully polished the animal that he looked as if he had just been killed and scalded. Miss Lavinia, going to see him next morning on her usual round of the stables and poultry-yard, was delighted with his changed appearance, and praised her gardener unreservedly.
Mitchell, however, was not so much enamoured of his new occupation as he professed to be in his mistress's presence. For one thing, he was just then very busy in the garden; for another, the pig began to make more and more calls upon his time. It speedily developed, or, rather, made manifest, a most extraordinary appetite, and by some almost malevolent prescience discovered that it had only to call loudly for anything that it wanted to have its desires immediately satisfied. No one who had chanced to see its entry into Little St. Peter's would have recognized it at the end of a fortnight. Its ribs were no longer visible; it was beginning to get a certain breadth across its back; its twinkling eyes were disappearing in its cheeks. The weekly bill for its board and lodging amounted to a considerable figure in shillings, but Miss Lavinia neither questioned nor grumbled at it. She was delighted with the pig's progress, and she believed it had come to recognize her. There was distinct regret in her voice when one morning she remarked—