e that she had been able to watch
the miracle of seed and leaf and flower, and to trace the life of the
young birds from their hatching to their flying from the nest. These
were annual pleasures to Marjory, but they were much increased by the
sweetness of Blanche's companionship. How she delighted in showing her
friend where the first bluebells would be found in the wood, and in
taking her to search in the most likely places for birds' nests! In one
of these searches they found a great treasure. They were walking by the
loch, when, amongst the reeds which grew along the water's edge they saw
a reed-warbler's nest. What an ingenious construction it was--long and
deep and pointed, woven between the reeds, and so firmly fixed and of
such a shape that the eggs could not be shaken out, even by the roughest
of winds. Marjory was very anxious that Blanche should see a pewit's
nest. There were always a certain number of these birds about the moors,
and the girls spent a whole morning searching for a nest. But these
birds hide their nests so carefully that they are most difficult to
find. After much patience and walking up and down over the same ground,
causing great uneasiness to the parent birds who circled overhead,
crying mournfully, they at last discovered a nest. It was just a little
hollow in the ground with some grass in it, and there were the eggs,
four of them, so wonderfully speckled that they matched the colour of
the ground, and laid so neatly in an almost perfect circle, the large
ends outwards and the very narrowly-pointed ones meeting in the centre.

"Oh," cried Blanche, "I've seen eggs like these in London shops; they
call them plovers' eggs, and people eat them at dinner-parties."

"What a shame!" said Marjory indignantly.

"Well, you eat hens' eggs," argued Blanche.

"But they're quite different. Somebody feeds them every day, and they
don't even have to make their own nests; and then, when they do lay an
egg, they make a great noise to let everybody know about it. But these
dear birds do it all themselves, and they take such trouble to hide
their eggs, and are so worried if they think any one is too near them.
Oh, I simply _couldn't_ eat a plover's egg."

"I couldn't either, now that I have seen the nest," said Blanche.
"Somehow you don't think of all the trouble the birds have when you just
see the eggs in boxes in a shop window."

Time slipped away, the weeks bringing their share of lessons in term
ti