The French Cross pony had always been regarded as an intelligent and highly cultured animal, an amusement to his mistress and the town in general, and by no means a source of melancholy. Yet such he became after Miss Gastonguay had been laid to rest by the largest concourse of people that had ever assembled to do honour to a citizen of Rossignol. The pony did not understand that his dear mistress lay under the green mound in the cemetery. He had seen her carried to the house, he had never seen her come out, and his mystification was complete. Where was she? How had she the heart to elude him? He was getting thin and doleful, and his tiny hoofs ached at night from his constant trottings to and fro. She was not up among the grand houses across the river, for he daily craned his neck over their garden hedges until different members of the Potts family would come to stroke him kindly, and murmur, "Poor pony, she is not here." Perhaps then she was among the poor people, and in joyful expectation he would hurry across the bridge to the canning factories. Sometimes the herring boats would be nearing the wharves, and the factory whistles would be sounding in a deafening chorus. She used to enjoy seeing men, women, and children running to their work. Perhaps he would discover her standing in some doorway, and he earnestly scanned the passing faces. No, she was never there, and disappointedly he would drag himself through the town, stopping at the stores, the bank, and the office of Potts Brothers, where Mr. Jonah Potts would wink his red eyes and mutter that he wished some one would shoot that pony. The whole town wished him dead,--the little lean animal with the pitiful eyes and weary manner,--yet there was not a man in Rossignol who would have pointed a revolver at him. Poor pony! his life was indeed a hard one, and if it had not been for Chelda, he would have died. This afternoon he had returned home from a long expedition into the country. He had had a sudden thought of a distant farm on a bleak and barren hillside. Alas! his mistress was not there, and now he stood listlessly regarding the sugar-bowl that Chelda offered him. All his life he had longed for a whole bowl of sugar. Now he had it and he did not care for it. "Take it back to the house," said his new mistress, and Prosperity mournfully obeyed her. Chelda resumed her former position. She always sat here when the weather was fine,--here in her aunt's favourite summer-house that faced down the river toward the sea. She neither read, nor worked, nor saw visitors. She was always alone. Sometimes she smoothed her black dress and thoughtfully turned the mourning ring on her hand, while she gazed at the pony, but she rarely spoke to him. She only caressed him, and he broken-heartedly felt that the house was melancholy, and that with her he was losing interest in life.