looked dismayed for a minute, till they saw a merry brown
face peeping out from the green leaves at the very top of the tree.

"Biggest fruit always grows highest," cried the Brownie. "Stand in a
row, all you children. Little boys, hold out your caps: little girls,
make a bag of your pinafores. Open your mouths and shut your eyes, and
see what the queen will send you."

They laughed and did as they were told; whereupon they were drowned in a
shower of cherries--cherries falling like hailstones, hitting them on
their heads, their cheeks, their noses--filling their caps and
pinafores, and then rolling and tumbling on to the grass, till it was
strewn thick as leaves in autumn with the rosy fruit.

What a glorious scramble they had--these three little boys and three
little girls! How they laughed and jumped and knocked their heads
together in picking up the cherries, yet never quarreled--for there were
such heaps, it would have been ridiculous to squabble over them; and
besides, whenever they began to quarrel, Brownie always ran away. Now he
was the merriest of the lot; ran up and down the tree like a cat, helped
to pick up the cherries, and was first-rate at filling the large
market-basket.

"We were to eat as many as we liked, only we must first fill the
basket," conscientiously said the eldest girl; upon which they all set
to at once, and filled it to the brim.

"Now we'll have a dinner-party," cried the Brownie; and squatted down
like a Turk, crossed his queer little legs, and sticking his elbows upon
his knees, in a way that nobody but a Brownie could manage. "Sit in a
ring! sit in a ring! and we'll see who can eat fastest."

The children obeyed. How many cherries they devoured, and how fast they
did it, passes my capacity of telling. I only hope they were not ill
next day, and that all the cherry-stones they swallowed by mistake did
not disagree with them. But perhaps nothing does disagree with one when
one dines with a Brownie. They ate so much, laughing in equal
proportion, that they had quite forgotten the Gardener--when, all of a
sudden, they heard him clicking angrily the orchard gate, and talking to
himself as he walked through.

"That nasty dog! It wasn't Boxer, after all. A nice joke! to find him
quietly asleep in his kennel after having hunted him, as I thought, from
one end of the garden to the other! Now for the cherries and the
children--bless us, where are the children? And the cherries? Why, the