r loved, and
when he could get a chance he would go and wet his feet, and rustle
about in amongst the reeds, and pretend to go in the water to swim after
the ducks, but always turning back when he got in up to his body.

CHAPTER NINE.

A TALL GENTLEMAN.

"Hum!" said Mrs Spottleover one morning to Mrs Flutethroat, after they
had been having a wash in the bright pure water. "Hum!" she said,
looking at the duck's brood of little downies swimming about after her,
and one of them with a bit of shell sticking to its back. "Hum! yes,
pretty well, but why yellow?"

"Ah! my dear, they will come white; they're not bleached yet. But they
are strong, aren't they? Look at the little ones, now, only four hours
old, and feeding themselves! Don't you wish yours would? Only think of
the trouble they give before they can feed alone!"

"Well!" said Mrs Spottleover, "that's all very well, but, after all,
those little downy balls take as much looking after as our little ones;
and then only think of one's child growing up to say nothing better than
`Quack-quack,' besides being flat-nosed and frog-footed. Depend upon
it, my dear, things are best as they are!"

"Well, I suppose you are right," said Mrs Flutethroat; "but I must not
stay here gossiping, for I have no end of work to do this morning."
Saying which the hen blackbird shook out her long dusky wings, cried
"Pink-pink-pink," and flew off to the laurel bush to attend to her
little ones; while the thrush hopped up into a tree to see how the haws
were getting on, and whether there would be a good crop for the winter.

Just then there was a great shadow passed over the pond, and the
ducklings splashed through the water, because they were so frightened,
and then flop-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, there came old Shadowbody, the
heron, to the pond, and pitched down by the haunt of the kingfisher,
where he stood with his long stilty legs half in the water, his great
floppy wings doubled up close to his sides, and his long neck squeezed
between his shoulders all of a bundle; and there he stood looking as
though he were going to sleep; but not a bit of it, old Shadowbody, or
Bluescrags, as some of the saucy young birds called him, did not stand
by the side of a pond to go to sleep, but to look after his dinner.

By-and-by the ducklings, seeing that the heron did not move, came nearer
to him; and at last a little white fly went sailing along under his
beak, and two ducklings set