"Mr. Marshman. There ain't the like in the country, as I've heerd tell; and I expect next thing she'll be flying over all the fields and fences like smoke."
There was a meaning silence. Ellen's heart beat.
"What's going to be done with him, do you suppose?" said Miss Fortune. Her look said, "If you think I am coming round, you are mistaken."
"Humph!" said Mr. Van Brunt, slowly "I s'pose he'll eat grass in the meadow, and there'll be a place fixed for him in the stables."
"Not in my stables," said the lady, shortly.
"No in mine," said Mr. Van Brunt, half-smiling; "and I'll settle with you about it by-and-by when we square up our accounts."
Miss Fortune was very much vexed, Ellen could see that; but she said no more, good or bad, about the matter; so the Brownie was allowed to take quiet possession of meadow and stables, to his mistress's unbounded joy.
Anybody that knew Mr. Van Brunt would have been surprised to hear what he said that morning; for he was thought to be quite as keen a looker after the main chance as Miss Fortune herself, only somehow it was never laid against him as it was against her. However that might be, it was plain he took pleasure in keeping his word about the pony. Ellen herself couldn't have asked more careful kindness for her favourite than the Brownie had from every man and boy about the farm.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Timothy and his master.