right, and we must stick to it. But I'll tell you what I don't like,
and that is Father thinking we're idle still. I wish he knew we were
the Brownies."

"So do I," said Johnnie; and he sighed.

"I tell you what," said Tommy, with the decisiveness of elder
brotherhood, "we'll keep quiet for a bit for fear we should leave off;
but when we've gone on a good while, I shall tell him. It was only the
Old Owl's grandmother's great-grandmother who said it was to be kept
secret, and the Old Owl herself said grandmothers were not always in
the right."

"No more they are," said Johnnie; "look at Granny about this."

"I know," said Tommy. "She's in a regular muddle."

"So she is," said Johnnie. "But that's rather fun, I think."

And they went to sleep.

Day after day went by, and still the Brownies "stuck to it," and did
their work. It is no such very hard matter after all to get up early
when one is young and light-hearted, and sleeps upon heather in a loft
without window-blinds, and with so many broken window-panes that the
air comes freely in. In old times the boys used to play at tents among
the heather, while the Tailor did the house-work; now they came down
and did it for him.

Size is not everything, even in this material existence. One has heard