ng any
remonstrances; bright-eyed little guinea-pigs, which often caused
exciting chases by escaping from their owners' embraces and hiding away
behind the cages; a family of piebald mice, consisting of a mother and
five young ones, which generally went to bed in the daytime, and had to
be poked out of their sleeping quarters with a lead pencil to make them
show themselves; a morose-looking tortoise that would allow Wilfred to
scratch its head, but spat indignantly at the others; and a whole box
full of silkworms in various stages, from tiny, wriggling black threads
to chrysalids in cocoons. The children were accompanied to the stable by
a sharp little black Pomeranian; but they were obliged to leave him
outside in case he might hurt the rabbits, and he sat howling dolefully
on the doorstep until they came out again. He escorted them into the
garden afterwards, however, and so did a large nondescript kind of yard
dog, which was called Bootles, and which allowed itself to be harnessed
to a mail-cart, and drew Cyril up and down the path.

"I want to show you our fruit trees," said Rhoda, leading the way to the
orchard. "We each have one of our very own, planted as soon as we were
born. Meta, Ralph, and Leonard have apples, Wilfred and Alwyn pears,
mine is a Victoria plum, Joan has a greengage, and Cyril a black cherry.
You see, they stand in a row, away from the other trees, so we call this
our part of the orchard."

"Whose is the ninth?" enquired Lindsay, looking at a fine pear tree
which headed the line.

"That belonged to our eldest brother," said Rhoda. "He died before I
can remember, but we still call it 'Herbert's tree'. The pears are
always ripe every year on his birthday, so we pick them all and pack
them carefully in a box, and send them to a children's hospital in
London. Mother sends the money she would have spent on his birthday
present too. They're the most beautiful pears, the best we have, and we
thought that was the nicest thing we could do with them."

The Greenwoods' little gardens were as interesting as their fruit trees.
Each child appeared to have been trying a different experiment. Wilfred
had made a pond in his by sinking an old wooden tub in the ground, and
was trying to persuade a water-lily to grow in it. He had planted a
clump of iris and some forget-me-nots at the edge, which hung over
rather gracefully, and really looked quite pretty. He kept several frogs
to swim about in the water, thoug