e gave me away to Philip Reeves,
an old friend of his, taking tender care to have me effectually mended
up, and bidding me a most affectionate farewell. I did not like my new
home very much, for though I had carried double before, little Julia was
a mere feather weight, and Charlie rode very lightly; but the Reeves's
children mounted me two and three at a time played rude, practical jokes
and treated me with all sorts of indignities. Once the little wretches
actually set Tom on me with his face to my tail, and then called me a
donkey, and shouted out, 'Gee up, Neddy!' And as for falls, we were
always tumbling about,--my entire occupation was tumbling about. They
dragged off all my pretty harness in tatters, by way of hauling me up
again, and then replaced it with a horrid lot of common rope. As for my
tail, oh, that was too bad! That abominable little Annie, the baby, got
hold of me after one of my falls, and by the help of nurse's scissors,
which had been dropped just by, she managed to shear all the hair off
close to the stump, and disfigured me for life. Then another of my legs
was broken, past mending. And so I lost all my good looks by degrees. To
finish my troubles, the two younger boys took it into their heads that I
wanted rubbing down, and they set to work with a vengeance, with the
help of the nursery bath and a hard hair brush, and by the time they
were found out, the nursery was swimming, and my poor complexion gone
for ever!

"No one could stand that, and patience won't last for ever, so you
cannot be surprised at my running away, and I think I managed my escape
pretty luckily. One Saturday night, when the workwoman was there, her
son came to fetch her home, and she somehow smuggled him into the empty
nursery to wait until she was ready to go home with him. The children
had all been put in their bath, and packed off early to bed, and Susan,
the nursemaid, had run downstairs for a few minutes' gossip in the
kitchen. Bob, the boy, began to eye me with great attention, and at last
he drew near and began to play with me. His mother went to put on her
bonnet and shawl, and Bob seized the opportunity.

"'You be a tidy pony!' said he, 'will you go along with me?'

"As I made no objection, and indeed was glad to go, he whipped me up in
his arms, ran down the back stairs and off with me like a shot. I was in
a dreadful fright for fear we should be found out, I can tell you, for
there was a wretched small woolly to