and twelve
chickens--all white Orpingtons. The mothers were stately, comfortable
dames, and the chicks, round little creamy balls, very tame and
fascinating. They came quite close to Norah as she stooped to feed
them, and one chick, bolder than his brethren, even stood on the back
of her hand. Wally admired without stint, and proceeded to discharge
the practical duty of rinsing out the water tins and filling them
afresh.

In the other yard a number of older chickens grew and prospered; these
also were all white, of the Leghorn breed, and Norah was immensely
proud of them. She sat down on the end of a box and pointed out their
varied beauties.

"I should have more--lots more," she said, dolefully. "But I've had
horrible trouble with pigs. Why anybody keeps pigs at all I can't
imagine!"

"They're handy when preserved," Wally remarked. "But what did they do
to you?"

"I had a lot of hens sitting this year," said the owner of the
yard--"sitting on lovely eggs, too, Wally! Some I got from Cunjee, and
some from Westwood, and two special sittings from Melbourne. I was
going to be awfully rich! You couldn't imagine all I'd planned with the
immense sums I was going to make."

"There's a proverb," said Wally, sententiously, "about counting your
chickens."

"You're quite the twelfth person who's mentioned that," Norah said,
with some asperity. "Anyhow, I never counted them; I only became rich
in a vague way, and it was very comforting. I'm glad I had that
comfort, for it was all I had."

"Norah, you thrill my very soul with awful fears," Wally gasped. "Tell
me the worst!"

"Donkey!" said Norah, unsympathetically. "Well, they were set. I fixed
up the boxes myself, and lined them so beautifully that when they were
ready, and the eggs in, it was all I could do to prevent myself sitting
on them!"

"I know," Wally nodded. "And then the hens wouldn't sit, would they?
They never do, when you make the nests especially tempting. I had an
old Cochin once who used to sit quite happily for six months at a time
on a clod and a bit of stone, expecting to hatch out a half-acre
allotment and a town hall; but if you put her on twelve beautiful eggs
she simply wouldn't look at them! Makes you vow you'll give up keeping
hens at all."

"It would," Norah said. "Only mine didn't do that."

"Oh!" said Wally, a little blankly. "What did they do, then?"

"Sat--"

"And ate the eggs--I know," Wally burst in. "My old brute used to eat
on