“ABRACADABRA!”
The effect was magical. The Poet and his sister could hardly believe their eyes. Instantly, with head drooping in the most dejected manner, the colt started toward the barn, followed by Mrs. Cowslip and the bull-calf, their tails now drooping and sorrowful. Next went the goat with conscience-smitten mien, and at the end of the melancholy file was the pig, squealing plaintively, all the kink out of his tail.
“Wait a bit, this won’t do at all!” suddenly exclaimed the Poet, with more excitement in his voice than his sister had ever before noted.
“Do ye want to be a friend to th’ critters?” inquired Gabriel.
“I’m going to be a brother to them,” said the Poet.
“And I’m going to be a sister to them, poor things!” said Galatea. “Didn’t the Professor have some word with which he expressed his forgiveness, and his love, with a gentle reproof and warning to be more careful in the future?” she added, looking at Gabriel with soft appeal in her eyes.
“Sartin’, sartin’.” Gabriel scratched his head. “I can’t jest remember. It begun the same, with a-b ab—”
“Of course,” broke in the Poet. “The canonical form of pronouncing absolution.”
He ran after the delinquents, calling them by name: “O Mrs. Cowslip! Clarence! Gustavius! William! Reginald!”
They stopped and looked back penitently. Galatea ran to her brother’s side. He held out his hands and cried:—