othes, if they could get them. No! no! when we
have one, you shall take his measure, I promise you."

And this was all the Tailor got out of her on the subject. When his
work was finished, the Farmer paid him at once; and the good dame added
half a cheese, and a bottle-green coat.

"That has been laid by for being too small for the master now he's so
stout," she said; "but except for a stain or two it's good enough, and
will cut up like new for one of the lads."

The Tailor thanked them, and said farewell, and went home. Down the
valley, where the river, wandering between the green banks and the
sandy rocks, was caught by giant mosses, and bands of fairy fern, and
there choked and struggled, and at last barely escaped with an
existence, and ran away in a diminished stream. On up the purple hills
to the old ruined house. As he came in at the gate he was struck by
some idea of change, and looking again, he saw that the garden had been
weeded, and was comparatively tidy. The truth is, that Tommy and
Johnnie had taken advantage of the Tailor's absence to do some
Brownie's work in the daytime.

"It's that Blessed Brownie!" said the Tailor. "Has he been as usual?"
he asked, when he was in the house.

"To be sure," said the old lady; "all has been well, son Thomas."

"I'll tell you what it is," said the Tailor, after a pause. "I'm a
needy man, but I hope I'm not ungrateful. I can never repay the Brownie
for what he has done for me and mine; but the mistress up yonder has
given me a bottle-green coat that will cut up as good as new; and as
sure as there's a Brownie in this house, I'll make him a suit of it."

"You'll _what_?" shrieked the old lady. "Son Thomas, son Thomas, you're
mad! Do what you please for the Brownies, but never make them clothes."

"There's nothing they want more," said the Tailor, "by all accounts.
They're all in rags, as well they may be, doing so much work."

"If you make clothes for this Brownie, he'll go for good," said the
Grandmother, in a voice of awful warning.

"Well, I don't know," said her son. "The mistress up at the farm is
clever enough, I can tell you; and as she said to me, fancy any one
that likes a tidy room not liking a tidy coat!" For the Tailor, like
most men, was apt to think well of the wisdom of womankind in other
houses.

"Well, well," said the old lady, "go your own way. I'm an old woman,
and my time is not long. It doesn't matter much to me. But it was new
clothes tha