"Take care!" cried Captain West, with his hand on the latch of one of the stable doors; "take care it doesn't jump out!"
"Is it alive? Can it run? Will it bite?" asked the children in astonishment.
But before they had time to say more the door was opened, and they caught sight of two most graceful little goats shrinking timidly into a corner.
"Are they for us?" inquired Madge, in a wondering tone of voice; for, so far, they had never owned anything larger than a pet rabbit, and the idea of having these beautiful goats for their own seemed almost too good to be true.
"They are absolutely your property," said Captain West. "I have nothing to do with them at all, except that I suppose I shall have the honour of paying for what they eat and break."
"Oh, Papa! They look much too dainty to break anything with their tiny little hoofs," said Madge reproachfully. "And I can see they will eat very little. But how do you think we had better divide two between three of us?"
"There are several ways," replied her father. "You might have the heads, Betty the bodies, and John the tails."
But this suggestion did not give entire satisfaction.
"If Madge wanted to feed her heads in the stable just when I had my bodies out walking on the road, how should we manage?" asked Betty.
"That is indeed a difficult question to decide," said Captain West thoughtfully. "I see that it is a much more difficult matter to keep goats than I had ever imagined. Perhaps after all it would be safer to send them back to America?"