e cocks. But I never make a mistake. This one
is a hen, and this one is a hen too.'

Then she set them on the ground again. Other hens were now coming up
to eat the rice. A large ruddy cock with flaming plumage followed them,
lifting his large feet with majestic caution.

'Alexander is getting splendid,' said the Abbe, to please his sister.

Alexander was the cock's name. He looked up at the young girl with his
fiery eye, his head turned round, his tail outspread, and then installed
himself close by her skirts.

'He is very fond of me,' she said. 'Only I can touch him. He is a good
bird. There are fourteen hens, and never do I find a bad egg in the
nests. Do I, Alexander?'

She stooped; the bird did not fly from her caress. A rush of blood
seemed to set his comb aflame; flapping his wings, and stretching out
his neck, he burst into a long crow which rang out like a blast from a
brazen throat. Four times did he repeat his crow while all the cocks of
Les Artaud answered in the distance. Desiree was greatly amused by her
brother's startled looks.

'He deafens one, eh?' she said. 'He has a splendid voice. But he's
not vicious, I assure you, though the hens are--You remember the
big speckled one, that used to lay yellow eggs? Well, the day before
yesterday she hurt her foot. When the others saw the blood they went
quite mad. They all followed her, pecking at her and drinking her blood,
so that by the evening they had eaten up her foot. I found her with her
head behind a stone, like an idiot, saying nothing, and letting herself
be devoured.'

The remembrance of the fowls' voracity made her laugh. She calmly
related other cruelties of theirs: young chickens devoured, of which she
had only found the necks and wings, and a litter of kittens eaten up in
the stable in a few hours.

'You might give them a human being,' she continued, 'they'd finish him.
And aren't they tough livers! They get on with a broken limb even. They
may have wounds, big holes in their bodies, and still they'll gobble
their victuals. That's what I like them for; their flesh grows again
in two days; they are always as warm as if they had a store of sunshine
under their feathers. When I want to give them a treat, I cut them up
some raw meat. And worms too! Wait, you'll see how they love them.'

She ran to the dungheap, and unhesitatingly picked up a worm she found
there. The fowls darted at her hands; but to amuse herself with the
sight of their gre