them? 4. What was the name of the duck? 5. What sort of
mother was she? 6. What did Betty say to her?

8. A VISIT TO SNOWDROP.

1. As Betty's brood was now grown old enough to go into the world, she
had plenty of time to pay Snowdrop a visit. So she went off one fine
morning and found her near the brink of the pond.

2. Snowdrop was using her orange bill as a shovel to catch leeches in
the mud. Betty told her that she had come to have a chat with her. She
wished to speak about the way in which she had brought up her children.

3. "I am sure, my dear Snowdrop," said Betty, "that cold water was the
death of all your lost ducklings, no matter what you or any other bird
may say.

4. "You are a strong duck, and so it has not hurt you yet. But you see
that your frail little ones are all gone. It is all through your
careless habit of letting them dabble in the mud all day and get their
feet wet."

5. "Nonsense!" said Snowdrop, as, with an eye dark and bright as that
of Betty, she glanced at her own orange legs and webbed feet.

6. "Nonsense! It is all nature, and runs in the blood," she said. "My
mother before me, and her mother before that, knew that water never
hurts a duck. It hurts us to be kept dry!

7. "And as for catching cold or getting fits, or cramp, or the pip--can
you do this?" And as she spoke, Snowdrop waddled down the steepest
part of the bank.

8. She set her breast for a moment against the tiny ripples of the pond
until she was in water deep enough to swim in. Then, all of a sudden,
she turned herself upside down.

9. Her head went below, and nothing of her could be seen above but a
tail, and two yellow legs. She stayed so long like this, grubbing for
water-snails, that Betty began to fear she should never see her head
again.

10. But she popped it out again in a few minutes, and came sailing with
a saucy quack back again to the bank. "Do I look any the worse?" said
she.

11. Betty held her tongue. She still thought, as she had done before,
that no matter what Snowdrop did, cold water was bad for ducklings.

12. A young Bantam hen, who was standing by, said to Betty, "Where can
you have come from, and what sort of egg did you creep out of, not to
have seen a duck swim before?" said the Bantam.

13. "All the yard knows that they are the best sailors in the world!
But for you and me, our ruffles are too well starched for such a way of
life."

[Illustration: UPSIDE DOWN.]

14. Her