Then she had been silent for a long while, for she could not say to Uncle that she and Maurits did not ask for the inheritance, for that was just what they did do. She wondered if it was very ugly for them to do so. She suddenly had a feeling as if she ought to beg Uncle for forgiveness for some great wrong that they had done him. But she could not do that either.
When they came in again, Uncle’s dog came to meet them. It was a tiny, little thing on the thinnest legs, with fluttering ears and gazelle-like eyes; a nothing with a shrill, little voice.
“You wonder, perhaps, that I have such a little dog,” Uncle Theodore had said.
“I suppose I do,” she had answered.
“But, you see, it is not I who have chosen Jenny for my dog, but Jenny who has taken me as a master. You would like to hear the story, Downie?” That name he had instantly seized upon.
Yes, she would like it, although she understood that it would be something irritating he would say.
“Well, you see, when Jenny came here the first time she lay on the knees of a fine lady from the town, and had a blanket on her back and a cloth about her head. Hush, Jenny; it is true that you had it! And I thought what a little rat it was. But do you know when that little creature was put down on the ground here some memories of her childhood or something must have wakened in her. She scratched, and kicked, and tried to rub off her blanket. And then she behaved like the big dogs here; so we said that Jenny must have grown up in the country.
“She lay out on the doorstep and never even looked at the parlor sofa, and she chased the chickens, and stole the cat’s milk, and barked at beggars, and darted about the horses’ legs when we had guests. It was a pleasure and a joy to us to see how she behaved. You must understand, a little thing that had only lain in a basket and been carried on the arm! It was wonderful. And so when they were going to leave, Jenny would not go. She stood on the steps and whined so pitifully and jumped up on me, and really asked to be allowed to stay. So there was nothing for us to do but to let her stay. We were touched by the little creature; it was so small, and yet wished to be a country dog. But I had never thought that I should ever keep a lap-dog. Soon, perhaps, I shall get a wife too.”
Oh, how hard it is to be shy, to be uneducated! She wondered if Uncle had been very surprised when she rushed away so hurriedly. But she had felt as if he had meant her when he spoke of Jenny. And perhaps he had not at all. But any way—yes she had been so embarrassed. She could not have stayed.
But it was not then “it” came, not then.