“But how could you do it? You didn’t know before you came, and there’s Bella and Agnetta was born on the farm, and doesn’t know now. Wonderful quick you must be, surely. And so little as you are—and quiet,” he went on, staring at his cousin. “You don’t make no more clatter nor fuss than a field-mouse.”
“’Tisn’t only noisy big things as is useful,” said Lilac with some pride.
“It’s harder to believe than the brownie,” went on Peter, shaking his head; “a deal more cur’ous. I thought I had got hold of him, but I don’t seem to understand this at all.”
He fell into deep thought, shaking his head at intervals, and it was not until the farm was in sight that he broke silence again.
“The smallest person in the farm,” he said slowly, “has brought back the credit of the farm. It’s downright amazing. I’m not agoin’ to say ‘thank you,’ though,” he added with a smile as they drove in at the gate.
A sudden thought flashed into Lilac’s mind. “Oh, Peter,” she cried, “the flowers was lovely on May Day, and the cactus is blooming beautiful! Was it the brownie as sent ’em, do you think?”
Peter made no reply to this, and his face was hidden, for he was plunging down to collect the parcels in the back of the cart. Lilac laughed as she ran into the house. What a funny one he was surely, and what a fine day’s holiday she had been having!