ts. True, there was
plenty of noise and bustle here as well as indoors, and family quarrels
were not wanting amongst the poultry; but unlike the sharp speeches of
Bella and Agnetta they left no bad feeling behind, and were soon settled
by a few pecks and flaps. Lilac was sure of a welcome when she appeared
at the gate to distribute the small offerings she had collected for her
various friends during the day; bits of bread, sugar, or crusts--nothing
came amiss, and even the great lazy Chummy would waddle slowly across to
her from the other end of the yard. By degrees Lilac began to look
forward to the end of the day, when she should meet these friends, and
found great comfort in the thought that they expected her and looked out
for her coming. Especially she liked to be present at milking-time, and
as often as she possibly could she stole out of the house at this hour
to spend a few quiet moments with Ben and his cows.

On this particular afternoon she saw that there was one among them she
had not noticed before--a little cream-coloured Alderney, with slender
black legs and dark eyes.

"I like that one best of all," she said, pointing to it.

Ben's voice sounded hollow as he answered, and seemed to come out of the
middle of the cow, for his head was pressed firmly against her side.

"Ah, she's a sort of a little fancy coo, she is," he said; "she belongs
to the young master. He thinks a lot of her. `We'll call this one
None-so-pretty,' says he, when he brung her home."

"Why does it belong to him," asked Lilac, "more than the other cows?"

"Well, it were like this 'ere," said Ben, who was fond of company and
always willing to talk. "This is how it wur. None-so-pretty she caught
cold when she'd bin here a couple of weeks, and the master he sent for
coo-doctor. And coo-doctor come and says: `She's in a pretty plight,'
says he; `information of the lungs she's got, and you'll never get her
through it. A little dillicut scrap of a animal like that,' he says;
'she ain't not to say fit for this part of the country! An' so he goes
away, and the coo gets worse, so as it's a misery to see her."

Ben stopped so long in his story to quiet None-so-pretty, who wanted to
kick over the pail, that Lilac had to put another question.

"How did she get well?"

"It wur along of the young master," answered Ben, "as sat up with her a
week o' nights, and poured her drink down her throat, and poletissed her
chest, and cockered