“Odd enough, I’m sure, my dear.”

“Well, I like it,” returned Susy, with a positive shake of the head.  “It’s of no use to keep fussing so long over a name, and I feel a great deal easier, now I’ve made up my mind!  Dear little Wings, you prick up your ears, and I know you like it, too.  I wish you had a soul, so you could be taken to church, and christened like a baby.”

Just here Susy was startled by a sudden laugh from cousin Percy, who had for some moments been walking behind the pony unobserved.

“You’re enough to frighten any one to death,” she screamed, “creeping about like a cat.”

Susy had a foolish dread of being laughed at.

“Creeping like a cat,” echoed Percy, “while you creep like a snail!  What will you take for your pony, that can fly in the air like a bird, but can’t walk on the ground any better than a goose?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Susy, quite excited:  “if you want to see anybody ride fast, just look here.”  And she started the pony at full speed, regardless of Prudy, who was so frightened, that she seized poor Wings by his flowing mane, and called out for her sister to stop.  But Susy dashed on at a flying pace, and Percy cried after her, “O, Susy, cousin Susy, what think of your Christmas present?  Will you remember not to eat it, and not to hang it on a nail?  Susy, Susy?”

There was hardly a happier child living than Susy, during those delightful holidays.  She said to herself, sometimes, that this was such a beautiful world, she couldn’t think of a single thing that wasn’t as splendid as it could be.

CHAPTER V.

PRUDY’S TROUBLE.

The happy days flew by.  The Old Year was worn out, and the New Year stepped in fresh and youthful.  Susy found her little sleigh a very comfortable affair; and so, I think, did “lame Jessie.”  When her father found that Susy had really chosen for her pony the name of Wings, he ordered a beautiful picture of the Flying Horse to be painted on the dashboard of the sleigh.

Susy was delighted with this, and her vivid fancy took wings at once, and flew away to the other end of the world, where her aunt Madge told her the fountain of Pirene was said to gush out of a hill-side.

“Only think,” said she to Flossy; “it was a woman once, that fountain was; but she poured her life all out into tears, crying because her son was killed.  So the fountain is made of tears!”

“Bitter and salt, then,” said Florence, threading her needle.

“No, indeed; just as sweet and nice as any water.  Pegasus loved it; and there was a beautiful young man, his name was Bel—­Bel—­well, I declare, I’ve forgotten,—­no, ’twas Bellerophon; and he had a bridle, and wanted a horse.  O, do you know this horse was white, with silvery wings, wild as a hawk; and, once in a while, he would fold up his wings, and trot round on the mountain!”