CHAPTER II
When I was well grown, at last, I was sold and taken away, and I never saw her again.
She was broken-hearted, and so was I, and we cried;
but she comforted me as well as she could, and said we were sent into this world for a wise and good purpose,
and must do our duties without repining (抱怨), take our life as we might find it, live it for the best good of others, and never mind about the results; they were not our affair.
She said men who did like this would have a noble and beautiful reward by and by in another world,
and although we animals would not go there, to do well and right without reward would give to our brief lives a worthiness and dignity which in itself would be a reward.
She had gathered these things from time to time when she had gone to the Sunday-school with the children, and had laid them up in her memory more carefully than she had done with those other words and phrases;
and she had studied them deeply, for her good and ours.
One may see by this that she had a wise and thoughtful head, for all there was so much lightness and vanity (虚荣) in it.
So we said our farewells, and looked our last upon each other through our tears;
and the last thing she said -- keeping it for the last to make me remember it the better, I think -- was,
"In memory of me, when there is a time of danger to another do not think of yourself, think of your mother, and do as she would do."
Do you think I could forget that? No.
CHAPTER III
It was such a charming home! -- my new one;
a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate (精美的) decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine;
and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden -- oh, greensward (草皮), and noble trees, and flowers, no end!
And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did not give me a new name,
but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it to me -- Aileen Mavoureen.
She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it;
and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender (纤细的) little copy of her, with auburn (赤褐色的) tails down her back, and short frocks (连衣裙);
and the baby was a year old, and plump (圆胖的) and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness;
and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint (闪烁) and sparkle with frosty intellectuality!
He was a renowned (有声望的) scientist.
I do not know what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects.
She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came. {1}
But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory (实验室).
My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. {2}
The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog said -- no, that is the lavatory (盥洗室);
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines;
and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place, and used the machines, and discussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries;
and often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her,
although it was a pain to me, as I realized what she was losing out of her life and I gained nothing at all;
for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at all.
Other times I lay on the floor in the mistress's work-room and slept, she gently using me for a foot-stool, knowing it pleased me, for it was a caress (爱抚);
other times I spent an hour in the nursery (育儿室), and got well tousled and made happy;
other times I watched by the crib (婴儿床) there, when the baby was asleep and the nurse out for a few minutes on the baby's affairs;
other times I romped and raced through the grounds and the garden with Sadie till we were tired out, then slumbered on the grass in the shade of a tree while she read her book;
other times I went visiting among the neighbor dogs -- for there were some most pleasant ones not far away,
and one very handsome and courteous (谦恭的) and graceful one, a curly-haired Irish setter by the name of Robin Adair, who was a Presbyterian like me, and belonged to the Scotch minister.
The servants in our house were all kind to me and were fond of me, and so, as you see, mine was a pleasant life.
There could not be a happier dog than I was, nor a gratefuler one.
I will say this for myself, for it is only the truth:
I tried in all ways to do well and right, and honor my mother's memory and her teachings, and earn the happiness that had come to me, as best I could.
By and by came my little puppy, and then my cup was full, my happiness was perfect.
It was the dearest little waddling (踉跄地走) thing, and so smooth and soft and velvety, and had such cunning little awkward paws,
and such affectionate eyes, and such a sweet and innocent face;
and it made me so proud to see how the children and their mother adored (喜欢) it, and fondled it, and exclaimed over every little wonderful thing it did.
It did seem to me that life was just too lovely to --
Then came the winter.