“You dearest Mopsie,” she half-sobbed, “I’m so glad you were a circus-pony, for just a plain horse mightn’t have been able to hold my dress so, and I’m going to love you just as much as I do Charcoal.”
Two very funny-looking children rode into the yard a little later. Great was the excitement when the story was told, and Mopsie had enough petting and praise and sugar to turn an ordinary horse’s head. Doctor Ward said that, without doubt, Eunice would have drowned but for Mopsie’s training to catch and hold things in his teeth, and besides that, he said that the little fellow’s circus life had probably done for him what education does for people generally—made him readier and quicker.
After that Cricket had the best of it when anybody teased her about riding a circus-pony, for she would exclaim, “I don’t care if he was. He saved Eunice’s life, for papa said so. And a plain horse wouldn’t have known how.”
And Eunice would add: “We love him all the better for it, because he had to learn how to be an every-day pony, and he’s learned it so well.”
CHAPTER IX.
THE KITTENS.
“Now, what do you s’pose those children are up to?” asked Cricket, with much interest.
“Those children,” referred to in that particular tone, always meant the twins, Zaidee and Helen.
Cricket and Eunice sat in an apple-tree, on a low, gnarled limb, munching harvest apples. It was after dinner, and they had not yet decided what to do with their afternoon. It was too hot to ride, and besides, they had been out on their ponies all the morning.
Trooping along the lane beneath them went the nursery party, Zaidee and Helen, with their nurse, Eliza, who held little Kenneth by the hand. With them was their little playmate, Sylvie Craig, with her nurse, who was wheeling Baby Craig in his carriage.
Zaidee and Sylvie swung between them a good-sized covered basket, which did not seem to be heavy, although they carried it with great care. All were chattering and laughing in high glee.