, there was a quick call from Preston.

"Girls, girls, come here?"

"Oh, dear," said Flaxie to Milly, "when the picnic is beginning so
beautifully!"

But then they both remembered that Preston was growing blind and they
must be kind to him; therefore Flaxie dropped Dr. Smith, and Milly
dropped the cake, and they ran along to the stable.

Before they reached it, however, they had forgotten all about the
picnic, for right in the stable-door stood a shaggy mustang pony,
harnessed to a basket-phaeton; and in the phaeton sat Preston holding
the reins, while Dr. Papa, mamma, and Julia stood looking on and
smiling.

"Oh, I never did see anything so cunning," cried Flaxie, forgetting she
had seen several just such ponies when she went to the seaside with Mrs.
Prim.

"Whoa! Jump in, both of you," said Preston, turning the phaeton half
round. His face was all aglow with delight.

"Yes, jump in," said Dr. Papa and mamma.

"It's Preston's pony," cried Julia, who had kept the secret for a whole
day and night, till it "seemed as if she should fly."

The way that gentle little beast walked out of the yard, the way he
trotted after he turned into the road! I really cannot give a proper
account of it myself; it needs a little girl about Flaxie's age to
describe a pony.

"Oh, he's a darling, a beauty, the sweetest little thing, not half as
big as Whiz! Why, Preston, aren't you just as happy? Is it your
carriage? Where's the whip? Oh, the silver reins! Didn't they cost a
_thou_-sand dollars? What do you call the pony? May I drive?"

[Illustration: THE WEDDING PICNIC. Page 160.]

"Yes, by and by, when my eyes grow so bad that I can't see," replied
Preston, a little sadly in spite of his joy; "but father says I may
drive now."

Flaxie had reached out for the reins, but Milly pinched her,--one of
those sly pinches that both the cousins understood,--and she folded her
little hands to keep them still. She did want to drive this very minute,
but she wouldn't plague Preston.

"Who is going to take care of your pony?" she asked.

They had a boy, Henry Mann, who took care of Whiz and Hiawatha.

"I shall attend to my pony myself," replied Preston, driving off at high
speed.

"Well, you must give him a quart of _granary_ as quick as we get home,"
said Miss Frizzle, looking wondrous wise; "Johnny Townsend feeds his
pony with granary--a whole quart."

Preston laughed and chirrupped. He was "just as happy," there was no
doubt a