enly calm of perfect
security, safe at last, and its round dark eye gazed serenely forth upon
all the world, including Moore. It had nothing further to fear from
him.

The duck had won, and Iris felt so glad that she longed to shake hands
with it, and make it understand how clever she thought it. She was,
indeed, so pleased that it was absolutely necessary to tell someone
about it, and after she had smiled and nodded at the duck a great many
times, to which it made no sort of response, she turned and ran quickly
indoors. Now she lived so much alone at Paradise Court that she was
ignorant that this very hour was sacred to Mrs Fotheringham's nap; it
was most important that she should not be disturbed, and no one would
lightly have done so who knew how much depended on it. If she did not
get her nap she did not relish her dinner; and if she did not relish her
dinner she was cross; and if she was cross the whole household was
uncomfortable, for she could by no means suffer other people to be at
rest if she were uneasy.

On this particular afternoon she was well on the way to get a very
comfortable doze. The day was warm; the room was carefully darkened
Miss Munnion sat holding her book close to a crack in the Venetian
blind, reaching aloud in a subdued and murmurous voice. Whether Mrs
Fotheringham slept or not she had to go on for an hour. The old lady,
drowsy with the unusual heat, was just on the edge of slumber, but still
partly conscious; sometimes she lost a whole page of the book at a time,
then she heard a little of it, and then Miss Munnion turned into a bee
and buzzed in the window. Just at this critical moment Iris banged open
the door and burst into the silent room.

"Oh!" she cried in her shrill childish voice, "what _do_ you think the
duck has done?"

It was so dark after the bright sunlight out of doors that at first she
did not see her godmother at all, but only Miss Munnion, who dropped her
book in her lap and stared at her with a helpless and frightened face.

Mrs Fotheringham started nervously; she grasped the arms of her chair
and exclaimed half awake in an agitated voice:

"What's the matter? Who's there? Who's done what?"

"It's the duck," stammered Iris in a more subdued manner.

"Is the chimney on fire?" continued Mrs Fotheringham. "I insist on
knowing what's the matter. Miss Munnion, where are you? Why don't you
find out what's the matter?"

"It's something about a duck," said