She stared
speechlessly at her cousin, and he presently went on in a reflective
tone with his eyes still fixed on the horse's ears:

"It's been a wonderful lucky year, there's no denying. Hay turned out
well, corn's going to be good. More eggs, more milk, better butter,
bees swarmed early."

"But," put in Lilac, "Aunt sprained her ankle, and the colt went lame,
and you had to sell None-so-pretty. That wasn't lucky. Why didn't the
brownie hinder that?"

Peter shook his head.

"I don't say as there _is_ a brownie at the farm," he said.

"But you think he helps make the butter," said Lilac scornfully.

Peter turned his eyes upon his companion; her face was hidden from him
by her sunbonnet, but her slender form and the sound of her voice seemed
both to quiver with indignation and contempt.

"Well, then, who _does_?" he asked.

But Lilac only held her head up higher and kept a dignified silence; she
was thoroughly put out with Peter, and if he was so silly it really was
no use to talk to him.

Conscious that he was in disgrace, Peter fidgeted uneasily with his
reins, whipped his horse, and cast some almost frightened glances over
his shoulder at the silent little figure beside him, then he coughed
several times, and finally, with an effort which seemed to make his face
broader and redder every minute, began to speak:

"I'd sooner plough a field than talk any day, but but I'll tell you
something if I can put it together. Words is so hard to frame, so as to
say what you mean. Maybe you'll only think me stupider after I'm done,
but this is how it was--"

He stopped short, and Lilac said gently and encouragingly, "How was it,
Peter?"

"I've had a sort of a queer feeling lately that there's something
different at the farm. Something that runs through everything, as you
might say. The beasts do their work as well again, and the sun shines
brighter, and the flowers bloom prettier, and there's a kind of a
pleasantness about the place. I can't set it down to anything, any more
than I know why the sky's blue, but it's there all the same. So I
thought over it a deal, and one day I was up in the High field, and all
of a sudden it rapped into my head what Grannie Dunch says about the
brownie as used to work at the farm. `Maybe,' I says to myself, `he's
come back.' So I didn't say nothing, but I took notice, and things went
on getting better, and I got to feel there was someone there helping on
the work--but I