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 that drove the Brownie out before, and Trout's luck went with
him."

"I know, Mother," said the Tailor, "and I've been thinking of it all
the way home; and I can tell you why it was. Depend upon it, _the
clothes didn't fit_. But I'll tell you what I mean to do. I shall
measure them by Tommy--they say the Brownies are about his size--and if
ever I turned out a well-made coat and waistcoat, they shall be his."