our fears were unfounded in
reference to the much-dreaded Mr. Gray.

CHAPTER XVI

THE REAL MR. GRAY--NURSE BUNDLE REGARDS HIM WITH DISFAVOUR

My feelings may therefore be "better imagined than described" when, at
about ten o'clock the following morning, my father called me
downstairs, and said, with an odd expression on his face,

"Regie, Mr. Gray has come."

Not for one instant did I in my mind accuse my father of deceiving me.
My faith in him was as implicit as he well deserved that it should be.
Black might be white, two and two might make five, impossible things
might be possible, but my father could not be in the wrong. It was
evident that I must have misunderstood him last night. I looked very
crestfallen indeed.

My father, however, seemed particularly cheerful, even inclined to
laugh, I thought. He took my hand and we went to the front door, my
heart beating wildly, for I was a delicate unrobust lad yet, far too
easily upset and excited. More like a girl, in fact, if the comparison
be not an insult to such sturdy maids as Cousin Polly.

Outside we found a man-servant on a bay horse, holding a little white
pony, on which, I supposed, the little tutor had been riding. But he
himself was not to be seen. I tried hard to be manly and calm, and
being much struck by the appearance of the pony, who, when I came down
the steps, had turned towards me the gentlest and most intelligent of
faces, with a splendid long curly white forelock streaming down
between his kind dark eyes, I asked--

"Is that Mr. Gray's pony, father?"

"What do you think of it?" said my father.

"Oh, it's a little dear," was my emphatic answer, and as the pony
unmistakably turned his head to me, I met his friendly advances by
going up to him, and in another moment my arms were round his neck,
and he was rubbing his soft, strong nose against my shoulder, and we
were kissing and fondling each other in happy forgetfulness of
everything but our sudden friendship, whilst the man-servant
(apparently an Irishman) was firing off ejaculations like crackers on
the fifth of November.

"Sure, now, did ever anyone see the like--just to look at the
baste--sure he knows it's the young squire himself entirely. Och, but
the young gintleman's as well acquainted with horses as myself--sure
he'd make friends with a unicorn, if there was such an animal; and
it's the unicorn that would be proud to let him, too!"

"It has been used to boys, I think?"