ing noticed that a certain gate leading to the
kitchen-garden had been left open, took the precaution to close it,
thereby preventing the incursion of a greedy sow and her interesting
family, which would undoubtedly have played the part of the Goths in
that flourishing spot. It is very likely that Billy's first impulse
was to boil his egg and eat it; but a moment's reflection convinced
him that this would be conduct very like that of the boy in the
fable, who slaughtered the goose that laid golden eggs. But how to
hatch his egg--for this was what he thought of--became now the
question. The good woman of the house noticed that Billy was
unusually silent at supper-time, and thought at first that some
disaster must have happened. She learned, however, that the cow had
her customary bed of soft heather, which it was Billy's pride to pick
for her, and had been as carefully attended to as usual in every
particular. We ought to mention that Billy was a great favourite with
his mistress; and perhaps he had won her heart by the care and
attention he had bestowed at every spare moment on one of her little
ones, who was a very sickly, fretful child, but who, somehow or
other, was always most quickly pacified by Billy. She soon learned
the cause of his thoughtful silence, and kindly offered to remove two
or three eggs from under a duck which was then sitting, and give
their place to her cow-boy's single treasure. This was the foundation
of William Carter's fortune; and it is worthy of remark, that both
the gift of the egg, and the opportunity of hatching it, he owed to
acts of thoughtful good-nature on his own part.

In due time the goslin appeared, and Billy fed it from his own scanty
fare, taking it with him when he was herding. By Christmas it had
become a large fat goose, and its owner was offered half-a-crown for
it. But he had a higher ambition for it than this, and he was not to
be tempted from his purpose by the prospect of present gain. The
following spring he set her on twelve eggs, which she had herself
produced, and by and by twelve goslins appeared. Our hero was now
obliged to exercise some ingenuity in finding food for so large a
family of dependents; but he accomplished his end by bartering away
three of them, in exchange for permission that the remainder should
feed in his master's yard, until they should be old enough to pick up
their subsistence in company with their mother and the cow upon the
common, and indulg