her.

After a little, Molly put it back into the nest, and telling Dot to wait for her, ran into the house and soon returned with a plate of dough, and some porridge and butter-milk in a basin.

She put the plate down beside the nest, and Toppy immediately began picking up little crumbs, and then calling to the duckling to come and share them.

But the little duck floundered right on the top of the food, and began nibbling at nothing, as if he would bore a hole in the bottom of the plate.

It was evident that he had not the slightest idea of picking up food, and as Toppy had quite as little of how he ought to be fed, he might have gone without his supper, if Molly had not come to his relief, and administered porridge and milk to him from a spoon.

The feeding of the duckling became one of the chief pleasures of the children after that. Three or four times every day you might have seen Molly seated with him on her lap, holding a spoon to his bill with an air of motherly solicitude, while Dot, leaning against her, held the basin of food in both hands, and watched him with delight.

But although "Ducky," as they called him, had been a little delicate at first, he soon out-grew it under the united care of Molly, Dot, and the speckled hen, and became as strong and hearty and greedy as it is in the nature of young ducks to be-which is saying a good deal.

Before long the spoon was dispensed with as unnecessary, and his food was put in a soup plate on the floor.

And while Toppy, who still persisted in supposing him to have a delicate appetite, would be trying to coax him to eat dainty morsels picked from her own dinner, he would be gobbling up porridge and swallowing milk, in such a hurry that you would have thought he was afraid of her stealing it from him.

As the weather was rather cold, Molly, who was a capital little hen-wife, would not allow Ducky to go out for nearly a fortnight after his birth. So long as they remained in the stable he was tolerably obedient to his foster-mother, and she was happy with him, although his peculiar ways-so different from those of the chickens she had reared-did sometimes try her a good deal. But one sunny day Molly threw the stable door open, and told her she might take her charge out for a little walk. Toppy did not need to be told a second time, but strolled

Molly and Dot stood watching them.

Toppy commenced to scrape, and having found a worm called lustily to Ducky to come and eat it; but just then Ducky spied the horse-pond at the foot of the yard, and with a loud "wheet! wheet!" of delight he waggled off towards it, as fast as his short legs would carry him. Toppy did not see what he was about till he was half-way to the water. When she did, she gave a shrill scream, and hurried after with outspread wings to bring him back. Dot, who did not understand the nature of ducklings much better than Toppy did, ran also, afraid he would be drowned; and Molly, as anxious about Dot as Dot and the old hen were about Ducky, ran after her, lest she should fall into the horse-pond.

So there they were all running, but Ducky was first, and when the others came up, he was sailing round the pond, as much at his ease as if he were on the floor of the stable.

From that day Toppy's life was one perpetual worry. When Ducky was not swimming in the horse-pond he was running through the wet grass in the paddock-the wetter it was the better he liked it-and she only got her feathers draggled to no purpose, when she followed to try and bring him back. Then the other hens sometimes mistook him for a rat, and pecked at him; and as he would not stay away from them when they were feeding, Toppy, who was naturally the most peaceable of birds, was always being dragged into quarrels in his defence. Altogether poor Toppy had a hard time of it, and if the two little girls had not helped her to look after him, she would have given up the charge of her nursling in despair. It was only according to nature, you see, that his ways should be different from Toppy's, but she did not understand that, and thought he did outlandish things on purpose to vex and frighten her. Of course if he had been a boy or girl it would have been his duty to curb his own inclinations for her pleasure; but being only a young duck he had nothing to do but follow his natural instincts. And he did.

Toppy put up with it for a long time-till Ducky was able to hold his own among the others, and cry "quack! quack!" in quite a self-assertive manner. And then one day she left him. Dot found Ducky sitting disconsolate in the stable, afraid to go into the yard when Toppy was not there to protect him. He was very glad to see Dot, and Dot was very glad to see him, for she was lonely too, that day, because her mother was away, and Molly was too busy to play with her as usual. So they went off together to the paddock, where they spent some

time very pleasantly-Dot knitting, and Ducky looking for slugs and anything else good to eat, and congratulating himself that Toppy was not there to cluck at him.

By-and-by Dot's needles stuck so tightly in her knitting that she could not get them to move without Molly's assistance. So she thought she would leave it, and go and gather blackberries in the field at the end of the lane. She had never gone so far alone before, but she was a fearless little thing, and indeed, as there were no horses nor cattle near that part of the farm, there was really nothing to be afraid of. Nobody saw her as she trotted along the lane, with Ducky waddling close behind.

They soon reached the field, and Ducky, feeling rather tired after the walk, squatted down on the grass, with one yellow foot stretched out, for coolness, and watched Dot as she moved from bush to bush, picking the ripe blackberries.

Dot picked and picked, till her cheeks, and her lips and finger-tips, were all dyed purple; and still, as she was going to stop, she would see another fine cluster that she thought she must have.

The berries were particularly large in the part of the field where she was; but Molly had warned her not to try to gather them because they grew round the mouth of an old gravel pit, into which she might fall. Dot had forgotten this at first, and when she did remember, the fruit was so tempting that she did not want to leave it.

"I will be very careful,” she said to herself, "and then Molly won't mind."

But she soon forgot to be careful, till, when eagerly reaching for a large berry, her foot suddenly slipped, and she went sliding away down a steep decline. It seemed a long time before she reached the bottom. "I thinks I must have falled for nearly a week," she told her mother afterwards.

She had not really fallen more than a few yards, however, and though a little shaken and a good deal frightened, was not hurt. She picked herself up after a bit, and began calling for Molly to help her out. Molly, of course could not hear her; but Ducky did, and came, waddling, to see what was the matter.

"Oh, Ducky, come and keep me company, for I can't get up out of this dref 'ful dark place!" cried Dot, when she looked up and saw him nodding his head at her. And just as if he knew what she was saying, Ducky gave himself a little jerk and came scrambling down through the briars. The next minute he was happily swimming in a little pool of water that he had caught sight of lying among the rocks.

Dot was very glad to have him for company, even

though he was too much engrossed in his own enjoyment to take any notice of her just then. Ducky had come down without troubling his head to think how he was to get up again; but Dot knew that whatever he might do, she could not get out of the pit without help, and nobody would think to look for her there.

She did not know what to do, and she thought and thought, but she only got tired out ; until at last she curled herself up and fell fast asleep.

You may guess the state Molly was in when, having got tea ready, she went out to the paddock to look for Dot, and found only her knitting. She ran to the field, where the men were working, thinking she might have followed some of them; but no one knew anything about her. The whole farm was soon in commotion, some of the labourers running to one place and some to another; but the evening darkened down, and Dot was not found. At last Molly thought of the gravel-pit, and rushed to the field calling "Dot! Dot!" at the top of her voice.

Dot was still asleep, and did not hear her; but Ducky did, and thinking Molly was calling him to his supper he answered, with a loud "quack! quack!" that wakened Dot. How Molly's heart leaped for joy when she heard him, for she knew that Dot could not be far off.

Guided by the sound, she ran along the edge of the gravel-pit, till she came above the spot where Dot sat rubbing her eyes, and wondering where she

was.

"Dot, Dot, are you there?" Molly called once

more.

And this time Dot's voice answered her-" Me and Ducky's both here, Molly; make haste, and take us out, for we 's so hungry."

Molly scrambled down the rocks in an instant, and gave Dot a great kiss, when she found her at the bottom. Being so much older and stronger than Dot, she was soon able to help her to the top, with Ducky, dripping wet, struggling in her arms.

Dot was not sorry to be above ground again. “I'll mind what you says to me anudder time," she told Molly; "I spects if you hadn't come to look for me and Ducky, we might have stayed in 'at hole till to-morrow-day."

Ducky waggled home behind them, and as his foster-mother had long since gone to roost, he was put to sleep in a cupboard in the kitchen, after a hearty supper.

Toppy never took any notice of him after that, and by-and-by, as she became immersed in the cares of a family of chickens, she forgot all about him.

But he and Dot always remained fast friends.