wasn't not to say _certain_ sure it was the brownie,
till one night--"

"When?" said Lilac eagerly as Peter paused.

"It was last Saint Barnaby's, and I'd been up to Cuddingham with
None-so-pretty. It was late when I got back, and I remembered I hadn't
locked the stable door, and I went across the yard to do it--"

"Well?" said Lilac with breathless interest.

"So as I went, it was most as light as day, and I saw as plain as could
be something flit in at the stable door. 'Twasn't so big as a man, nor
so small as a boy, and its head was white. So then I thought, `Surely
'tis the brownie, for night's his working time,' and I'd half a mind to
take a peep and see him at it. But they say if you look him in the face
he'll quit, so I just locked the door and left him there. When Benson
talked that way about the credit of the farm, I knew who we'd got to
thank. Howsomever," added Peter seriously, "you mustn't thank him, nor
yet pay him, else he'll spite you instead of working for you."

As he finished his story he turned to his cousin a face beaming with the
most childlike faith; but it suddenly clouded with disappointment, for
Lilac, no longer gravely attentive, was laughing heartily.

"I thought maybe you'd laugh at me," he said, turning his head away
ashamed.

Lilac checked her laughter. "Here's a riddle," she said. "The brownie
you locked into the stable that night always makes the butter. He isn't
never thanked nor yet paid, but you've looked him in the face scores of
times."

Peter gazed blankly at her.

"You're doing of it now!" she cried with a chuckle of delight; "you're
looking at the brownie now! Why, you great goose, it's me as has made
the butter this ever so long, and it was me as was in the stable on
Saint Barnaby's!"

It was only by very slow degrees that Peter could turn his mind from the
brownie, on whom it had been fixed for weeks past, to take in this new
and astonishing idea. Even when Lilac had told her story many times,
and explained every detail of how she had learnt to be dairymaid, he
broke out again:

"But how _could_ you do it? You didn't know before you came, and
there's Bella and Agnetta was born on the farm, and doesn't know now.
Wonderful quick you must be, surely. And so little as you are--and
quiet," he went on, staring at his cousin. "You don't make no more
clatter nor fuss than a field-mouse."

"'Tisn't only noisy big things as is useful," said Lilac with some
pr