Beasts and Super-Beasts | Page 9

seen it sooner. Yesterday, at the Rectory garden party, he asked her
what her favourite flowers were, and she told him carnations, and to-
day a whole stack of carnations has arrived, clove and malmaison and
lovely dark red ones, regular exhibition blooms, and a box of
chocolates that he must have got on purpose from London. And he's
asked her to go round the links with him to-morrow. And now, just at

this critical moment, Toby has sold him that animal. It's a calamity!"
"But you've been trying to get the horse off your hands for years," said
Clovis.
"I've got a houseful of daughters," said Mrs. Mullet, "and I've been
trying--well, not to get them off my hands, of course, but a husband or
two wouldn't be amiss among the lot of them; there are six of them, you
know."
"I don't know," said Clovis, "I've never counted, but I expect you're
right as to the number; mothers generally know these things."
"And now," continued Mrs. Mullet, in her tragic whisper, "when there's
a rich husband-in-prospect imminent on the horizon Toby goes and
sells him that miserable animal. It will probably kill him if he tries to
ride it; anyway it will kill any affection he might have felt towards any
member of our family. What is to be done? We can't very well ask to
have the horse back; you see, we praised it up like anything when we
thought there was a chance of his buying it, and said it was just the
animal to suit him."
"Couldn't you steal it out of his stable and send it to grass at some farm
miles away?" suggested Clovis; "write 'Votes for Women' on the stable
door, and the thing would pass for a Suffragette outrage. No one who
knew the horse could possibly suspect you of wanting to get it back
again."
"Every newspaper in the country would ring with the affair," said Mrs.
Mullet; "can't you imagine the headline, 'Valuable Hunter Stolen by
Suffragettes'? The police would scour the countryside till they found
the animal."
"Well, Jessie must try and get it back from Penricarde on the plea that
it's an old favourite. She can say it was only sold because the stable had
to be pulled down under the terms of an old repairing lease, and that
now it has been arranged that the stable is to stand for a couple of years
longer."

"It sounds a queer proceeding to ask for a horse back when you've just
sold him," said Mrs. Mullet, "but something must be done, and done at
once. The man is not used to horses, and I believe I told him it was as
quiet as a lamb. After all, lambs go kicking and twisting about as if
they were demented, don't they?"
"The lamb has an entirely unmerited character for sedateness," agreed
Clovis.
Jessie came back from the golf links next day in a state of mingled
elation and concern.
"It's all right about the proposal," she announced; "he came out with it
at the sixth hole. I said I must have time to think it over. I accepted him
at the seventh."
"My dear," said her mother, "I think a little more maidenly reserve and
hesitation would have been advisable, as you've known him so short a
time. You might have waited till the ninth hole."
"The seventh is a very long hole," said Jessie; "besides, the tension was
putting us both off our game. By the time we'd got to the ninth hole
we'd settled lots of things. The honeymoon is to be spent in Corsica,
with perhaps a flying visit to Naples if we feel like it, and a week in
London to wind up with. Two of his nieces are to be asked to be
bridesmaids, so with our lot there will be seven, which is rather a lucky
number. You are to wear your pearl grey, with any amount of Honiton
lace jabbed into it. By the way, he's coming over this evening to ask
your consent to the whole affair. So far all's well, but about the Brogue
it's a different matter. I told him the legend about the stable, and how
keen we were about buying the horse back, but he seems equally keen
on keeping it. He said he must have horse exercise now that he's living
in the country, and he's going to start riding to-morrow. He's ridden a
few times in the Row, on an animal that was accustomed to carry
octogenarians and people undergoing rest cures, and that's about all his
experience in the saddle--oh, and he rode a pony once in Norfolk, when
he was fifteen and the pony twenty-four; and to-morrow he's going to
ride the Brogue! I shall