“I can’t rightly tell you, my dear,” said the old lady, “but it gave me such a turn to see him. And without more ado your grandfather kissed me. ‘How dare you?’ said I. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘The Old Owl knows,’ said he. So we never went.”
“How stupid!” said Tommy.
“Tell us more about Brownie, please,” said Johnnie. “Did he ever live with anybody else?”
“There are plenty of Brownies,” said the old lady, “or used to be in my mother’s young days. Some houses had several.”
“Oh! I wish ours would come back!” cried both the boys in chorus. “He’d —
“tidy the room,” said Johnnie;
“fetch the turf,” said Tommy;
“pick up the chips,” said Johnnie;
“sort your scraps,” said Tommy;
“and do everything. Oh! I wish he hadn’t gone away.”