ide.

"It's harder to believe than the brownie," went on Peter, shaking his
head; "a deal more cur'ous. I thought I had got hold of him, but I
don't seem to understand this at all."

He fell into deep thought, shaking his head at intervals, and it was not
until the farm was in sight that he broke silence again.

"The smallest person in the farm," he said slowly, "has brought back the
credit of the farm. It's downright amazing. I'm not agoin' to say
`thank you,' though," he added with a smile as they drove in at the
gate.

A sudden thought flashed into Lilac's mind. "Oh, Peter," she cried,
"the flowers was lovely on May Day, and the cactus is blooming
beautiful! Was it the brownie as sent 'em, do you think?"

Peter made no reply to this, and his face was hidden, for he was
plunging down to collect the parcels in the back of the cart. Lilac
laughed as she ran into the house. What a funny one he was surely, and
what a fine day's holiday she had been having!

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE CONCERT.

"But I will wear my own brown gown
And never look too fine."

Months came and went. August turned his beaming yellow face on the
waving cornfields, and passed on leaving them shorn and bare. Then came
September bending under his weight of apples and pears, and after him
October, who took away the green mantle the woods had worn all the
summer, and gave them one of scarlet and gold. He spread on the ground,
too, a gorgeous carpet of crimson leaves, which covered the hillside
with splendour so that it glowed in the distance like fire. Here and
there the naked branches of the trees began to show sharply against the
sky--soon it would be winter. Already it was so cold, that although it
was earlier than usual Miss Ellen said they must begin to think of
warming the church, and to do this they must have some money, and
therefore the yearly village concert must be arranged.

"It was the new curate as come to me about it," said the cobbler to Mr
Dimbleby one evening. "`You must give us a solo on the clar'net, Mr
Snell,' says he."

"He's a civil-spoken young feller enough," remarked Mr Dimbleby, "but
he's too much of a boy to please me. The last was the man for my
money."

"Time'll mend that," said Joshua. "And what I like about him is that he
don't bear no sort of malice when he's worsted in argeyment. We'd been
differing over a passage of Scripture t'other day, and when he got up to
go, `Ah, Mr Snell,' say