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“You insatiable rascal!” said the Doctor. “Not another word. Jump up, for I am going to see you home. I have to be off early to-morrow.”

“Where?” said Deordie.

“Never mind. I shall be away all day, and I want to be at home in good time in the evening, for I mean to attack that crop of groundsel between the sweet-pea hedges. You know, no Brownies come to my homestead!”

And the Doctor’s mouth twitched a little till he fixed it into a stiff smile.

The children tried hard to extract some more ends out of him on the way to the Rectory; but he declined to pursue the history of the Trout family through indefinite generations. It was decided on all hands, however, that Tommy Trout was evidently one and the same with the Tommy Trout who pulled the cat out of the well, because “it was just a sort of thing for a Brownie to do, you know!” and that Johnnie Green (who, of course, was not Johnnie Trout) was some unworthy village acquaintance, and “a thorough Boggart.”

“Doctor!” said Tiny, as they stood by the garden-gate, “how long do you think gentlemen’s pocket-handkerchiefs take to wear out?”

“That, my dear Madam,” said the Doctor, “must depend, like other terrestrial matters, upon circumstances; whether the gentleman bought fine cambric, or coarse cotton with pink portraits of the reigning Sovereign, to commence with; whether he catches many colds, has his pockets picked, takes snuff, or allows his washerwoman to use washing powders. But why do you want to know?”

“I sha’n’t tell you that,” said Tiny, who was spoilt by the Doctor, and consequently tyrannized in proportion; “but I will tell you what I mean to do. I mean to tell Mother that when Father wants any more pocket-handkerchiefs hemmed, she had better put them by the bath in the nursery, and perhaps some Brownie will come and do them.”

“Kiss my fluffy face!” said the Doctor in sepulchral tones.

“The owl is too high up,” said Tiny, tossing her head.

The Doctor lifted her four feet or so, obtained his kiss, and set her down again.

“You’re not fluffy at all,” said she in a tone of the utmost contempt; “you’re tickly and bristly. Puss is more fluffy, and Father is scrubby and scratchy, because he shaves.”

“And which of the three styles do you prefer?” said the Doctor.

“Not tickly and bristly,” said Tiny with firmness; and she strutted up the walk for a space or two, and then turned round to laugh over her shoulder.

“Good-night!” shouted her victim, shaking his fist after her.

The other children took a noisy farewell, and they all raced into the house to give joint versions of the fairy tale, first to the parents in the drawing-room, and then to Nurse in the nursery.

The Doctor went home also, with his poodle at his heels, but not by the way he came. He went out of his way, which was odd; but then the Doctor was “a little odd,” and moreover this was always the end of his evening walk. Through the church-yard, where spreading cedars and stiff yews rose from the velvet grass, and where among tombstones and crosses of various devices lay one of older and uglier date, by which he stayed. It was framed by a border of the most brilliant flowers, and it would seem as if the Doctor must have been the gardener, for he picked off some dead ones, and put them absently in his pocket. Then he looked round as if to see that he was alone. Not a soul was to be seen, and the moonlight and shadow lay quietly side by side, as the dead do in their graves. The Doctor stooped down and took off his hat.

“Good-night, Marcia,” he said in a low quiet voice. “Good-night, my darling!” The dog licked his hand, but there was no voice to answer, nor any that regarded.

Poor foolish Doctor! Most foolish to speak to the departed with his face earthwards. But we are weak mortals, the best of us; and this man (one of the very best) raised his head at last, and went home like a lonely owl with his face to the moon and the sky.

A BORROWED BROWNIE.

“I can’t imagine,” said the Rector, walking into the drawing-room the following afternoon; “I can’t imagine where Tiny is. I want her to drive to the other end of the parish with me.”

“There she comes,” said his wife, looking out of the window, “by the garden-gate, with a great basket; what has she been after?”

The Rector went out to discover, and met his daughter looking decidedly earthy, and seemingly much exhausted by the weight of a basketful of groundsel plants.

“Where have you been?” said he.

“In the Doctor’s garden,” said Tiny triumphantly; “and look what I have done! I’ve weeded his sweet-peas, and brought away the groundsel; so when he gets home to-night he’ll think a Brownie has been in the garden, for Mrs. Pickles has promised not to tell him.”

“But look here!” said the Rector, affecting a great appearance of severity, “you’re my Brownie, not his. Supposing Tommy Trout had gone and weeded Farmer Swede’s garden, and brought back his weeds to go to seed on the Tailor’s flower-beds, how do you think he would have liked it?”

Tiny looked rather crestfallen. When one has fairly carried through a splendid benevolence of this kind, it is trying to find oneself in the wrong. She crept up to the Rector, however, and put her golden head upon his arm.

“But, Father dear,” she pleaded, “I didn’t mean not to be your Brownie; only, you know, you had got five left at home, and it was only for a short time, and the Doctor hasn’t any Brownie at all. Don’t you pity him?”

And the Rector, who was old enough to remember that grave-stone story we wot of, hugged his Brownie in his arms, and answered,

“My Darling, I do pity him!”