More like a girl, in fact, if the comparison be not an insult to such sturdy maids as Cousin Polly.
Outside we found a man-servant on a bay horse, holding a little white pony, on which, I supposed, the little tutor had been riding.

But he himself was not to be seen.

I tried hard to be manly and calm, and being much struck by the appearance of the pony, who, when I came down the steps, had turned towards me the gentlest and most intelligent of faces, with a splendid long curly white forelock streaming down between his kind dark eyes, I asked-- "Is that Mr.Gray's pony, father ?" "What do you think of it ?" said my father.
"Oh, it's a little dear," was my emphatic answer, and as the pony unmistakably turned his head to me, I met his friendly advances by going up to him, and in another moment my arms were round his neck, and he was rubbing his soft, strong nose against my shoulder, and we were kissing and fondling each other in happy forgetfulness of everything but our sudden friendship, whilst the man-servant (apparently an Irishman) was firing off ejaculations like crackers on the fifth of November.
"Sure, now, did ever anyone see the like--just to look at the baste--sure he knows it's the young squire himself entirely.

Och, but the young gintleman's as well acquainted with horses as myself--sure he'd make friends with a unicorn, if there was such an animal; and it's the unicorn that would be proud to let him, too!" "It has been used to boys, I think ?" said my father.
"Ye may say that, yer honour.

It likes boys better than man, woman, or child, and it's not every baste ye can say that for." "A good many beasts have reason to think very differently, I fear," said my father.
"And _that's_ as true a word as your honour ever spoke," assented the groom.
Meanwhile a possible ground of consolation was beginning to suggest itself to my mind.
"Will Mr.Gray keep his pony here ?" I asked, "The pony will live here," said my father.
"Oh, do you think," I asked, "do you think, that if I am very good, and do my lessons well, Mr.Gray will sometimes let me ride him?
He _is_ such a darling!" By which I meant the pony, and not Mr.Gray.