As she spoke her eyes wandered about the room and I felt sure they were taking an inventory of our faded carpet and worn, old-fashioned furniture. She seemed to me more and more like a woman accustomed to dictate and to have her own way, and I could not rid myself of a feeling that having once seen Katy she would not readily forget her. The songs outside had ceased by this time; the robin had flown away, and the child had disappeared. Col. Errington had Fan all to himself at one end of the piazza to which we had repaired, and I was listening to a dissertation from Miss Errington on the best method for removing stains and spots from old carpets and dresses and feeling sure she had seen them in ours and was taking this way to instruct me. We had heard the whistle of the mail train from the east, and twenty minutes later Black Beauty went galloping down the lane at one side of the house with Katy on his back, bareheaded, with her fair hair blowing in the wind and her face turned smilingly towards us as she passed. We were expecting a letter from father and she was going to the Postoffice, as she often did on Black Beauty, saddleless and sometimes bridleless, for she was a fearless little rider and Black Beauty the most gentle of beasts.
“See, Cornie, that is the pony I told you about, the one some of my rascally soldiers stole,” the Colonel said to his sister, who looked admiringly after the horse and rider, saying, “Upon my word, she sits the creature well, and without a saddle, too. She has more than one accomplishment.”
“You will be advising us next to train her for a circus,” Fan said sarcastically, but Miss Errington did not reply, and went on giving me good advice until Katy came cantering back, holding a letter in her hand and reining Beauty up to the side of the piazza.
Springing from his back and handing the letter to me she stood holding the pony by the mane, while Miss Errington bent forward and began to examine him with the eye of a connoisseur.
“Really,” she said to her brother, “he is a beauty and no mistake; I should like him for my own when we go to our place in the country. Is he yours?” and she looked at me.
I shook my head, and nodded towards Fan, to whom she said, “What will you take for him?”
“He is not for sale,” Fan answered, decidedly, stepping down by the horse and winding her arm around his neck.
The brother and sister, so much alike in looks, were also so far alike in disposition that opposition only increased their determination to succeed. In this instance Miss Errington was the more earnest of the two and seemed resolved to carry her point and have Black Beauty whether we were willing or not, and her brother seconded her wishes. Two hundred dollars cash down in crisp greenbacks were finally offered, and I shall never forget the look on Fan’s face as she put it down on Beauty’s neck, thinking intently, as I well knew, of the many things we needed and which two hundred dollars would buy. Of our worn furniture generally, our house, from which the paint was gone, our shutters, unhinged and loose, and more than all father’s darned and threadbare coats and shocking hat, and our own dresses, made over so many times. Two hundred dollars seemed a fortune, and Beauty was only a luxury. Father had his saddle horse for visiting the few patients who lived beyond walking distance, and Black Beauty was really more ornamental than useful to us. This was the train of thought passing through her mind, while I watched her curiously. Lifting her head at last she said proudly, with great tears standing on her long lashes, “Next to father, Ann and Katy, I love Black Beauty better than any living thing. You can see that we are poor enough, made so by the war,” here her voice began to break, but she steadied it and went on: “We need many things, but until poverty has a firmer foothold in our house than it has now I cannot let Black Beauty go. If a time comes when I must part with him I will let you know; I’d rather you had him than any one, for I believe you would be kind to him.”
Taking her arm from the horse’s neck she gave a peculiar whistle, saying, “Go, Beauty, go.”
He understood her and went prancing down the rear lane towards his pasture; sometimes with his heels in the air and sometimes his forefeet, as if giving vent to his delight at having escaped some threatened danger. I had thought Miss Errington cold and emotionless and was surprised at the sudden transformation in her manner after this as she talked to Fan, who was soon herself again, chatting gaily and repeating ludicrous and exaggerated stories of the Colonel when he was our unbidden guest and our place full of blue coats.