“He probably had an engagement,” she said, and a little uneasiness stole over her. Another mile. She could scarcely conceal her impatience. “Couldn’t the pony run up this little hill?” she asked.
“It could,” said Lucas, rather contemptuously; “but Mrs. Burnett don’t like him to run uphill, she don’t—she thinks it’s bad for him.” Aunt Anne was too much engrossed in her own thoughts to answer. “He goes faster than the donkey did last year, anyhow, ma’am; do you mind the donkey?”
“I frequently drove him.”
“He was a deal of trouble, he was,” Lucas went on; “and they didn’t do well by him—gave four pound ten for him, and when they come to sell him a year later they only got two pound five.”
“So that they were mulcted of just half the sum for which they had purchased him,” she said absently, having quickly reckoned up the loss in her head. “Was there any reason for that?”
“Well, you see, this was it,” said Lucas—“when gentry first come to live about here they took to keeping donkeys, so donkeys went up; then after a bit they found they wouldn’t go, and they took to selling them and buying ponies, so donkeys went down. I am afraid you are getting very wet, ma’am. I wish I had thought to bring a rug to cover you. But here we are at the house, and you’ll be able to dry yourself by the fire.”
“Thank you, Lucas, thank you,” and she slipped the shilling into his hand, and, taking her bulging bag from under the seat, walked into the house by the back door.
“Jane,” she asked, the moment she crossed the threshold, “where is Mr. Wimple?”
“He went out an hour and a half ago, ma’am, or a little more perhaps.”
“Do you know in what direction he went?”