When Mr. Poodle held them up they smiled with a vague almost
bashful simplicity; and Mrs. Spaniel could not help murmuring
"The darlings!" The curate, less experienced with children, had
insisted on holding all three at once, and Gissing feared lest
one of them might swarm over the surpliced shoulder and fall
splash into the font. But though they panted a little with
excitement, they did nothing to mar the solemn instant. While
Mrs. Spaniel was picking up the small socks with which the floor
was strewn, Gissing was deeply moved by the poetry of the
ceremony. He felt that something had really been accomplished
toward "burying the Old Adam." And if Mrs. Spaniel ever grew
disheartened at the wash-tubs, he was careful to remind her of
the beautiful phrase about the mystical washing away of sin.

They had been christened Groups, Bunks, and Yelpers, three
traditional names in his family.

Indeed, he was reflecting as he walked in the dusk, Mrs. Spaniel
was now his sheet anchor. Fortunately she showed signs of
becoming extraordinarily attached to the puppies. On the two days
a week when she came up from the village, it was even possible
for him to get a little relaxation--to run down to the station
for tobacco, or to lie in the hammock briefly with a book.
Looking off from his airy porch, he could see the same blue
distances that had always tempted him, but he felt too passive to
wonder about them. He had given up the idea of trying to get any
other servants. If it had been possible, he would have engaged
Mrs. Spaniel to sleep in the house and be there permanently; but
she had children of her own down in the shantytown quarter of the
village, and had to go back to them at night. But certainly he