"I did not ride him, Ellie; I took yours."
"The Brownie! did you? I'm very glad! How did you like him? But perhaps he was tired a little, and you couldn't tell so well to-day."
"He was not tired with any work you had given him, Ellie perhaps he may be a little, now."
"Why?" said Ellen, somewhat alarmed.
"I have been trying him; and instead of going quietly along the road, we have been taking some of the fences in our way. As I intend practising you at the bar, I wished to make sure, in the first place, that he knew his lesson."
"Well, how did he do?"
"Perfectly well I believe he is a good little fellow. I wanted to satisfy myself if he was fit to be trusted with you; and I rather think Mr. Marshman has taken care of that."
The whole wall of trees was in shadow when the little family sat down to table; but there was still the sunlit picture behind; and there was another kind of sunshine in every face at the table. Quietly happy the whole four, or at least the whole three, were first, in being together after that, in all things beside. Never was tea so refreshing, or bread and butter so sweet, or the song of birds so delightsome. When the birds were gone to their nests, the cricket and grasshopper, and tree-toad and katydid, and nameless other songsters, kept up a concert nature's own in delicious harmony with woods and flowers, and summer breezes and evening light. Ellen's cup of enjoyment was running over. From one beautiful thing to another her eye wandered from one joy to another her thoughts went till her full heart fixed on the God who had made and given them all, and that Redeemer whose blood had been their purchase-money. From the dear friends beside her, the best loved she had in the world, she thought of the one dearer, yet from whom death had separated her; yet living still and to whom death would restore her, thanks to Him who had burst the bonds of death, and broken the gates of the grave, and made a way for his ransomed to pass over. And the thought of Him was the joyfullest of all.
"You look happy, Ellie," said her adopted brother.
"So I am," said Ellen, smiling a very bright smile.