Dickie could hardly believe the beautiful hope that whispered in his ear.
"I almost think I remember," he said. "Father—did you promise?"
"I promised, if thou wast a good lad and biddable and constant at thy book and thy manly exercises, to give thee, so soon as thou should'st have learned to ride him"
"A little horse?" said Dickie breathlessly; "oh, father, not a little horse?" It was good to hear one's father laugh that big, jolly laugh—to feel one's father's arm laid like that across one's shoulders.
The little horse turned round to look at them from his stall in the big stables. It was really rather a big horse.
What coloured horse would you choose—if a horse were to be yours for the choosing? Dickie would have chosen a grey, and a grey it was.
"What is his name?" Dickie asked, when he had admired the grey's every point, had had him saddled, and had ridden him proudly round the pasture in his father's sight.
"We call him Rosinante," said his father, "because he is so fat," and he laughed, but Dickie did not understand the joke. He had not read "Don Quixote," as you, no doubt, have.
"I should like," said Dickie, sitting square on the grey, "to call him Crutch. May I?"
"Crutch?" the father repeated.
"Because his paces are so easy," Dickie ex-
