l blaze
for him. At last, when he did come in, he took no notice of the blaze
or of Susan; and when his wife asked him how he was, he made no
answer, but stood with his back to the fire, looking very gloomy.
Susan put his supper upon the table, and set his own chair for him,
but he pushed away the chair and turned from the table, saying, "I
shall eat nothing, child. Why have you such a fire to roast me at this
time of year?"

"You said yesterday, father, I thought, that you liked a little
cheerful wood-fire in the evening, and there was a great shower of
hail. Your coat is quite wet. We must dry it."

"Take it, then, child," he said, pulling it off, "I shall soon have no
coat to dry. Take my hat, too," he went on, throwing it upon the
ground.

Susan hung up his hat, put his coat over the back of a chair to dry,
and then stood looking at her mother, who was not well. She had tired
herself with baking, and now, alarmed by her husband's strange
conduct, she sat down pale and trembling. The father threw himself
into a chair, folded his arms, and gazed into the fire.

Susan was the first who ventured to break the silence. Fondling her
father, she tried to coax him to eat the supper prepared for him.
This, however, she could not persuade him to do, but he said, with a
faint smile, that he thought he could eat one of her guinea-hen's
eggs. Susan thanked him, and showed her eagerness to please her dear
father by running as fast as she could to her neat chicken-yard. Alas!
the guinea-fowl was not there. It had strayed into the garden of Mr.
Case. She could see it through the paling. Going to the garden-gate,
Susan timidly opened it, and seeing Miss Barbara walk slowly by, she
asked if she might come in and take her guinea-fowl.

Barbara, who at that moment was thinking of all she had heard the
village children say, started when she heard Susan's voice.

"Shut the gate," she said crossly, "you have no business in our
garden. As for the hen, I shall keep it; it is always flying in here
and plaguing us, and my father told me I might catch it and keep it
the next time it got in, and it is in now." Then Barbara called to her
maid Betty and bid her catch the mischievous bird.

"Oh, my guinea-hen! my pretty guinea-hen!" cried Susan, as mistress
and maid hunted the frightened, screaming creature from corner to
corner.

"Now we have it!" said Betty, holding it fast by the legs.

"Then pay damages, Queen Susan, or you may say