just for a minute. And a great song was in her own bosom--a
great song of joy--and although the sound that came from her beautiful
coral bill was only a soft "qua', qua'," to common ears, to those who
have the finest hearing it was full of a heavenly tenderness. But there
was a tremor in it, too--a tremor of fear; and the fear was so terrible
that it kept her from looking down even when she knew a little head was
thrusting itself up through her great warm wing. She drew the wing as a
caressing arm lovingly about it though, and saying to herself, "I must
wait till they are all come; then I'll look," she gazed upward at the
moon that was just showing a rim of gold over the hay-stack--and closed
her eyes.

There was no sleep that long night for little mother Quackalina.

It was a great, great night. Under her breast, wonderful happenings
every minute; outside, the white moonlight; and always in sight across
the yard, just a dark object against the ground--Sir Sooty, sound
asleep, like a philosopher!

Oh yes, it was a great, great night. Its last hours before day were very
dark and sorrowful, and by the time a golden gleam shot out of the east
Quackalina knew that her first glance into the nest must bring her
grief. The tiny restless things beneath her brooding wings were chirping
in an unknown tongue. But their wiry Japanesy voices, that clinked
together like little copper kettles, were very young and helpless, and
Quackalina was a true mother-duck, and her heart went out to them.

When the fatal moment came and she really looked down into the nest, her
relief in seeing beautiful feathered things, at least, was greater than
any other feeling. It was something not to have to mother a lot of
"tarrups," certainly.

Little guineas are very beautiful, and when presently Quackalina found
herself crossing the yard with her twenty dainty red-booted hatchlings,
although she longed for her own dear, ugly, smoky, "beautiful"
ducklings, she could not help feeling pleasure and pride in the
exquisite little creatures that had stepped so briskly into life from
beneath her own breast.

It was natural that she should have hurried to the pond with her brood.
Wouldn't she have taken her own ducklings there? If these were only
little "step-ducks," she was resolved that, in the language of
step-mothers, "they should never know the difference." She would begin
by taking them in swimming.

Besides, she longed for the pond herself. It was