"You mean 'about a thousand,'" Sylvie corrected him. "There's no good saying 'and four': you ca'n't be sure about the four!'
"And you're as wrong as ever!" Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. "It's just the four I can be sure about; 'cause they're here, grubbling under the window! It's the thousand I isn't pruffickly sure about!"
"But some of them have gone into the sty," Sylvie said, leaning over him to look out of the window.
"Yes," said Bruno; "but they went so slowly and so fewly, I didn't care to count them."
"We must be going, children," I said. "Wish Bessie good-bye." Sylvie flung her arms round the little maiden's neck, and kissed her: but Bruno stood aloof, looking unusually shy. ("I never kiss nobody but Sylvie!" he explained to me afterwards.) The farmer's wife showed us out: and we were soon on our way back to Elveston.
"And that's the new public-house that we were talking about, I suppose?" I said, as we came in sight of a long low building, with the words 'The Golden Lion' over the door.
