hile before they found, and still longer before they could decide,
which was the biggest gooseberry-bush, each child having his or her
opinion--sometimes a very strong one--on the matter. At last they agreed
to settle it by pulling half-a-dozen little sticks, to see which stick
was the longest, and the child that held it was to decide the
gooseberry-bush.

This done, underneath the branches what should they find but the
identical basket of clothes! only, instead of being roughly dried, they
were all starched and ironed in the most beautiful manner. As for the
shirts, they really were a picture to behold, and the stockings were all
folded up, and even darned in one or two places, as neatly as possible.
And strange to tell, there was not a single black mark of feet or
fingers on any one of them.

"Kind little Brownie! clever little Brownie!" cried the children in
chorus, and thought this was the most astonishing trick he had ever
played.

What the Gardener's wife said about it, whether they told her any thing,
or allowed her to suppose that the clothes had been done in their own
laundry instead of the Brownie's (wherever that establishment might be),
is more than I can tell. Of one thing only I am certain--that the little
people said nothing but what was true. Also, that the very minute they
got home they told their mother every thing.

But for a long time after that they were a good deal troubled. Gardener
got better, and went hobbling about the place again, to his own and
every body's great content, and his wife was less sharp-tongued and
complaining than usual--indeed, she had nothing to complain of. All the
family were very flourishing, except the little Brownie.

Often there was heard a curious sound all over the house; it might have
been rats squeaking behind the wainscot--the elders said it was--but the
children were sure it was a sort of weeping and wailing.

"They've stolen my coal,
And I haven't a hole
To hide in;
Not even a house
One could ask a mouse
To bide in."

A most forlorn tune it was, ending in a dreary minor key, and it lasted
for months and months--at least the children said it did. And they were
growing quite dull for want of a playfellow, when, by the greatest good
luck in the world, there came to the house not only a new lot of
kittens, but a new baby. And the new baby was everybody's pet, including
the Brownie's.

[I