I heard them talking, and then Dick came back and closed
the door behind him. 'He wants to know,' said Dick, 'if he can leave
the corned beef over till tomorrow. Because, if he eats it all to-
night, he doesn't think he will be able to walk home.'
"Veronica takes great interest in him. She has evidently a motherly
side to her character, for which we none of us have given her credit.
She says she is sure there is good in him. She sits beside him while
he chops wood, and tells him carefully selected stories, calculated,
she argues, to develop his intelligence. She is careful, moreover,
not to hurt his feelings by any display of superiority. 'Of course,
anyone leading a useful life, such as yours,' I overheard her saying
to him this morning, 'don't naturally get much time for reading.
I've nothing else to do, you see, 'cept to improve myself.'
"The donkey arrived this afternoon while I was out--galloping, I am
given to understand, with 'Opkins on his back. There seems to be
some secret between those two. We have tried him with hay, and we
have tried him with thistles; but he seems to prefer bread-and-
butter. I have not been able as yet to find out whether he takes tea
or coffee in the morning. But he is an animal that evidently knows
his own mind, and fortunately both are in the house. We are putting
him up for to-night with the cow, who greeted him at first with
enthusiasm and wanted to adopt him, but has grown cold to him since
on discovering that he is not a calf.
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