The first idea was to get her a Welsh pony; the second was to hire a piano from the county town; the third was to send for a boxful of novels from London.

I must confess I thought these projects for pleasing her very happily conceived, and Owen agreed with me.
Morgan, as usual, took the opposite view.

He said she would yawn over the novels, turn up her nose at the piano, and fracture her skull with the pony.

As for the housekeeper, she stuck to her text as stoutly in the evening as she had stuck to it in the morning.

"Pianner or no pianner, story-book or no story-book, pony or no pony, you mark my words, sir--that young woman will run away." Such were the housekeeper's parting words when she wished me good-night.
When the next morning came, and brought with it that terrible waking time which sets a man's hopes and projects before him, the great as well as the small, stripped bare of every illusion, it is not to be concealed that I felt less sanguine of our success in entertaining the coming guest.