"But you'll be here to-morrow early, Ellie?"
"Oh, won't I?" exclaimed Ellen, as she sprang to Alice's neck "as early as I can, at least; I don't know when Aunt Fortune will have done with me."
The way home seemed as nothing. If she was tired, she did not know it. The Brownie! the Brownie! the thought of him carried her as cleverly over the ground as his very back would have done. She came running into the chip-yard.
"Hollo!" cried Mr. Van Brunt, who was standing under the apple-tree, cutting a piece of wood for the tongue of the ox- cart, which had been broken "I'm glad to see you can run. I was afeard you'd hardly be able to stand by this time; but there you come like a young deer!"
"Oh, Mr. Van Brunt," said Ellen, coming close up to him, and speaking in an undertone "you don't know what a present I have had! What do you think, Mr. Marshman has sent me from Ventnor?"
"Couldn't guess," said Mr. Van Brunt, resting the end of his pole on the log, and chipping at it with his hatchet "never guessed anything in my life what is it?"
"He has sent me the most beautiful little horse you ever saw! for my own for me to ride; and a beautiful saddle and bridle; you never saw anything so beautiful, Mr. Van Brunt; he is all brown, with one white fore-foot, and I've named him the 'Brownie;' and oh, Mr. Van Brunt! Do you think Aunt Fortune will let him come here?"
Mr. Van Brunt chipped away at his pole, looking very good- humoured.
"Because you know I couldn't have half the good of him if he had to stay away from me up on the mountain. I shall want to ride him every day. Do you think aunt Fortune will let him be kept here, Mr. Van Brunt?"
"I guess she will," said Mr. Van Brunt, soberly, and his tone said to Ellen, "I will, if she don't."