“He’s laughing,” said Anne, and it did indeed look as if Timmy was having a good old laugh at them. Anne gave him a hug and he licked her lavishly, and then began to burrow round and round in the straw again.

Someone came up, whistling loudly, and put her head in at the door. “I’ve brought you a couple of old pillows. Mrs Johnson said you’d better have something for your heads.”

“Oh thanks awfully, Henry,” said Julian, taking them.

“How kind of you, Henrietta,” said George.

“It’s a pleasure, Georgina,” said Henry, and the boys burst out laughing. Fortunately the supper-bell went just then and they all went across the yard at once. Somehow everyone was always hungry at the stables!

The girls looked very different in the evening, because they had to change out of their dirty, smelly jodhpurs or breeches and put on dresses. Anne, Henry and George hurried to change before Mrs Johnson rang the supper-bell again. She always gave them ten minutes’ grace, knowing that they might sometimes have a job to finish with the horses, but everyone was supposed to be at the table when the second supper-bell had finished ringing.

George looked nice, because her curly hair went with a skirt and blouse quite well, but Henry looked quite wrong, somehow, in her frilly dress.

“You look like a boy dressed up!” said Anne, and this pleased Henry, but not George. The talk at the supper table was mainly about all the wonderful things that Henry had done in her life. Apparently she had three brothers and did everything with them, and according to her own tales, she was considerably better than they were!

They had sailed a ship up to Norway. They had hiked from London to York.

“Was Dick Turpin with you?” inquired George, sarcastically. “On his horse, Black Bess? I expect you got there long before him, didn’t you?”

Henry took no notice. She went on with wonderful tales of her family’s exploits, swimming across wide rivers, climbing Snowdon to the top, goodness, there wasn’t a single thing she didn’t seem to have done!

“You certainly ought to have been a boy, Henry,” said Mrs Johnson, which was exactly what Henry wanted everyone to say!

“Henry, when you’ve told us the story of how you climbed Mount Everest and got there before anyone else, perhaps you would finish your plateful,” said Captain Johnson, who got very tired of Henry’s tongue.

George roared with laughter, not that she thought it was very funny, but because she loved any chance to laugh at Henry. Henry tackled the rest of her food at top speed. How she did love to hold everyone spellbound with her extraordinary tales! George didn’t believe a word, but Dick and Julian thought it quite likely that this tall, wiry girl could do things just as well as her brothers.

There were a few jobs to be done after supper, and Henry kept well away from George, knowing quite well that she would have a few cutting things to say. Well, she didn’t care! Everyone else thought she was marvellous! She tore off her frilly dress and put on jodhpurs again, although it would only be a short time before they all went to bed.