t iron as the six
children went homeward across the fields--merry enough still, but not
quite so merry as they had been a few hours before.

"Let's hope mother won't be vexed with us," said they, "but will let us
come back again to-morrow. It wasn't our fault that Gardener tumbled
in."

As somebody said this, they all heard quite distinctly, "Ha, ha, ha!"
and "Ho, ho, ho!" and a sound of little steps pattering behind.

But whatever they thought, nobody ventured to say that it was the fault
of the Brownie.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

ADVENTURE THE SIXTH AND LAST

BROWNIE AND THE CLOTHES

TILL the next time; but when there is a Brownie in the house, no one can
say that any of his tricks will be the last. For there's no stopping a
Brownie, and no getting rid of him either. This one had followed the
family from house to house, generation after generation--never any
older, and sometimes seeming even to grow younger by the tricks he
played. In fact, though he looked like an old man, he was a perpetual
child.

To the children he never did any harm, quite the contrary. And his chief
misdoings were against those who vexed the children. But he gradually
made friends with several of his grown up enemies. Cook, for instance,
who had ceased to be lazy at night and late in the morning, found no
more black footmarks on her white table cloth. And Brownie found his
basin of milk waiting for him, night after night, behind the coal-cellar
door.

Bill, too, got on well enough with his pony, and Jess was taken no more
night-rides. No ducks were lost; and Dolly gave her milk quite
comfortably to whoever milked her. Alas! this was either Bill or the
Gardener's wife now. After that adventure on the ice, poor Gardener very
seldom appeared; when he did, it was on two crutches, for he had had
rheumatism in his feet, and could not stir outside his cottage door.
Bill, therefore, had double work; which was probably all the better for
Bill.

The garden had to take care of itself; but this being winter-time, it
did not much signify. Besides, Brownie seldom went into the garden,
except in summer; during the hard weather he preferred to stop in his
coal-cellar. It might not have been a lively place, but it was warm, and
he liked it.

He had company there, too; for when the cat had more kittens--the kitten
he used to tease being grown up now--they were all put in a hamper in
the coal-cellar; and of cold nights Brownie used