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The little ladies were quite alive to the possibility that the child's parents might never be traced, indeed the matter had been constantly before their minds ever since the parson had carried the baby to Lingborough, and laid it in the arms of Thomasina, the servant. Miss Betty had sat long before her toilette-table that evening, gazing vacantly at the looking-glass.
They said That since Lob came back to Lingborough the hens laid eggs as large as turkeys' eggs, and the turkeys' eggs were oh, you wouldn't believe the size! That the cows gave nothing but cream, and that Thomasina skimmed butter off it as less lucky folk skim cream from milk. That her cheeses were as rich as butter.
"Sir," said Miss Betty with dignity, "if we have our own pride, I hope it's an honest one. Lingborough will have passed out of our family when it's kept up on borrowed money." "I could live in lodgings," added Miss Betty, firmly, "little as I've been accustomed to it, but not in debt." "Well, well, my dear madam, we needn't talk about it now.
That horses foddered on Lingborough hay would have thrice the strength of others, and that sheep who cropped Lingborough pastures would grow three times as fat. That for as good a watchdog as it was, the sheep dog never barked at Lob, a plain proof that he was more than human. That for all its good luck it was not safe to loiter near the place after dark, if you wished to keep your senses.
But what did that matter, when he had been overheard to swear that luck should not leave Lingborough till Miss Betty owned half the country side? Miss Betty and Miss Kitty having accepted a polite invitation from Mrs. General Dunmaw, went down to tea with that lady one fine evening in this eventful summer.
The farm-bailiff knew of a farm on the Scotch side of the Border where a brownie had been driven away by the minister preaching his last Sunday's sermon over again at him, and as Thomasina said, "There'd been little enough luck at Lingborough lately, that they should wish to scare it away when it came."
That she sold all she made, for Lob took the fairy butter from the old trees in the avenue, and made it up into pats for Miss Betty's table. That if you bought Lingborough turnips, you might feed your cows on them all the winter and the milk would be as sweet as new-mown hay.
The rental of Lingborough did more. How much more the little old ladies did not know themselves, and no one else shall know, till that which was done in secret is proclaimed from the housetops.
The little ladies did not know, the broom bushes were silent, and the question has remained unanswered from that day to this. There were no railways near Lingborough at this time. The coach ran three times a week, and a walking postman brought the letters from the town to the small hamlets.
Miss Betty's uncle's second cousin had returned from foreign lands with a good fortune and several white cockatoos. He kept the fortune himself, but he gave the cockatoos to his friends, and he sent one of them to the little ladies of Lingborough.