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 He looked hard at her for a moment. He realised her meaning, that the hostile neighbourhood could be relied on to supply nothing of that kind.

'Of course,' he said, as though he had thought of it himself.

'She'll love the pony, sir, if she ain't one of the booky sort, which I seem to remember she ain't,' added Mrs. Coove, looking as usual as though just about to burst into tears. For her motherly face wore a lachrymose expression that was utterly deceptive. Her contempt for books, too, and writing folk was never quite successfully concealed.

In silence he watched the old woman wipe her moist hands upon a black apron, and the perplexities of his new duties grew visibly before his eyes. She had little notion that secretly her master stood a little in awe of her superior domestic knowledge.

'The pony and the woods,' he suggested briefly.

'A puppy or a kitten, sir, would help a bit for indoors, if I may make so bold,' the housekeeper ventured, with a passing gulp at her own audacity; 'and out of doors, sir, as you say, maybe she'll be 'appy enough. Her pore mother taught⁠—'

The long breath she had taken for this sentence she meant to use to the last gasp if possible. But her master cut her short.

'Miss Mánya arrives at six,' he said, turning to his books and papers. 'The dog-cart, with you in it, to meet her⁠—please.' The 'please' was added because he knew her vivid dislike of being too high from the ground, while judging correctly that the pleasure would more than compensate her for this risk of elevation. It was also intended to convey that he appreciated her help, but deplored her wordiness. Laconic even to surliness himself, he disliked long