times a day, just to gloat!"

"Never gloat too soon," said Wally. "It's a hideous risk!"

"I'm never going to gloat again at all, I think," said Norah,
mournfully. The recital of her woes was painful. "So I went down one
morning, and found them all happy and peaceful; the six old ladies
sitting in their boxes, and the two proud mammas with their chicks,
scratching round the yard and chasing grasshoppers. It was," said
Norah, in the approved manner of story-tellers, "a fair and joyous
scene!"

"'Specially for the grasshoppers!" commented her hearer. "And then--?"

"Then I went out for a ride with Dad, and I didn't get back until late
in the afternoon. I let Bobs go, and ran down to the fowl yard without
waiting to change my habit." Norah paused. "I really don't know that I
can bring myself to tell you any more!"

"If you don't," said Wally, indignantly, "there'll certainly be
bloodshed. Go on at once--

"Am I a man on human plan
Designed, or am I not, Matilda?"

"H'm," said Norah. "Well, I'm not Matilda, anyway! However, I opened
the gate of the yard. And then I stood there and just gaped at what I
saw."

"Dogs?"

"Our dogs are decently trained," Norah said, much offended. "No, it
wasn't dogs--it was pigs!"

"Whew-w!" whistled Wally.

"Pigs. They had burrowed in right under the fence; there was a great
big hole there. And they'd eaten every chicken, and every egg in the
yard. My lovely boxes were all knocked over, and the nests torn to
bits, and there wasn't so much as an eggshell left. The poor old hens
were just demented--they were going round and round the yard, clucking
and calling, and altogether like mad things. And in the middle of it
all, fat and happy and snoring--three pigs!"

"What did you do?" Wally felt that this case was beyond the reach of
ordinary words of sympathy.

"Couldn't do anything. I chased the beasts out of the yard, and threw
everything I could find at them--but you can't hurt a pig. And Dad was
horrid--advised me to have them killed, so that at least we could have
eggs and bacon!" Norah laughed, in spite of her woebegone tone.

"And he calls himself a father!" said Wally, solemnly.

"Oh, he wasn't really horrid," Norah answered. "He wrote off to town
and bought me a very swagger pair of Plymouth Rocks--just beauties. They
cost three guineas!"

"Three guineas!" said the awestruck youth. "What awful waste! Where are
they, Norah? Show me them at once!"

"Can't," Norah