“Mrs Jenks, ma’am, is you fond of Scamp?”
Mrs Jenks had just returned after a day’s charing, and now, having washed up, and put away the tea-things, and made herself clean and comfortable, she was seated in her little arm-chair, a tiny roll of coloured calico in her lap, and a mysteriously small thimble in her hand. At Flo’s question she patted the dog’s head, and answered gently—
“Yes, dear, I loves all dumb creatures.”
“Then, Mrs Jenks, may be yer’d like fur to keep Scamp?”
“Why, my child, of course you are both on a little visit with me for the present. See, Flo, I am going to teach you needlework—it is what all women should be adepts in, dear.”
At another time Flo could not have resisted this appeal, but she was too intensely in earnest now to be put off her subject.
“I means, ma’am,” she said, rising to her feet and speaking steadily, “I means, ma’am, wen my little wisit is hover, and you ’as back yer bed, ma’am, as God gave me the loan of—I means then, ma’am, seeing as you loves my dawg, and you’ll be kind to ’im, and hall ’ee wants is no bed, but to lie on the rug, why, that you might keep my dawg.”
Flo’s voice shook so while renouncing Scamp, that the animal himself heard her, and got up and thrust his great awkward head between her hands. She had hard work to restrain her tears, but did so, and kept her eyes steadily fixed on Mrs Jenks. That little woman sat silent for fully a moment, now returning Flo’s gaze, now softly stroking Scamp’s back—at last she spoke.
“No, Flo,” she said, “I won’t part you and Scamp—you love each other, and I think God means you to stay together. He has made you meet, and let you pass through a pretty sharp little bit of life in company, and I have no idea but that He sent you His dumb creature to be a comfort to you, and if that is so, I won’t take him away. As long as you stay he shall stay, but when you go back to your cellar he shall go too.”
Scamp, whose eyes expressed that he knew all about it, and fully believed that Mrs Jenks understood his character, looked satisfied, and licked her hand, but Flo had still an anxious frown on her face. “Ef you please, ma’am,” she said, “’tis better fur me to know how much longer am I to have the loan of your bed, ma’am?”