"I know that, for I have heard him say so before, Gilbert," Aunt Betty here interposed, and as if pleased at what her husband proposed.
"Thank you," I answered; "there is nothing in the world you could give me that would please me half so much"; for since the night I rode her to Appletop I thought her the finest animal in all the world.
Taking leave of Uncle Job and Aunt Betty, Constance and I started for the Dragon, and on our way ran across Fox, as good luck would have it. When we told him about the journey and our wish that he should go with me, he was delighted beyond power of speaking, for he had long desired to get away from Appletop, and only Uncle Job's wish kept him back. This because the past had been a bar to his getting anything worthy of him, nor did it seem possible he could live it down, though he labored hard to be thought worthy of men's confidence. It was plain, too, that he had now begun to despair of his future, in which we greatly pitied him, for he was in all things of blameless life and wholly free from folly of any kind.
"Do you know where you can get a horse?" I asked, when it had been arranged that he should go.
"Yes, I know a good one I can hire," he answered, and sorrowfully enough, for it had been a long time since he had a horse of his own.
"We had better buy one; Aunt Jane has sent me money enough, and it can't be used in a better way, can it?"
"That would be fine; and have you a horse?" he asked.
"Yes; Uncle Job has given me the gray mare."
"Given her to you! Well, that's past belief, for she is the very apple of his eye," he answered, surprised.
While we were thus talking, Blott came up, bustling and fat and as full of color as an alderman. He had now been married a year, and was, moreover, deputy sheriff, an office he filled with great pride, and acceptably to the public. When I told him of our journey, the roving instinct in him showed itself in the way he straightened up.