ut I _must_
show it to Cousin Charlotte. Fluff, you darling, do go on and lay lots
more. I want one every day, then you shall sit on some, and hatch out
some dear little baby chicks of your very own; and you shall live with me
till you are an old, old bird, Fluffikins darling, and no one shall dare
to--to--" she hesitated to name the dreadful word 'kill,'--"shall
interfere with you. You are what they call the 'founder' of my fortune,
you precious bird."

She did not take the egg in to show to Miss Charlotte after all.
She thought of another plan. She took it in and showed it to Anna, and to
the girls, who gazed at it and marvelled at its beauty, but Miss Charlotte
was not to see it until it appeared on her plate at tea, with an
inscription on it to say whose it was.

It hurt Angela very much to deprive poor Fluffikins of her treasure, but,
while she was not looking, she slipped another new, warm egg in the nest
in its place, and hoped the dear bird would not see through the fraud; and
Miss Charlotte did deserve the honour, after all her goodness to Fluff and
her mistress; in fact they were pledged to it.

Cousin Charlotte could not suppress a slight start of surprise when she
saw the black-speckled thing in the egg-cup on her plate; but she was as
pleased as the girls could wish when she read, 'My and Fluff's first egg
for you,' and assured them, as she ate it under their united gaze, that
she had never in her life tasted a better one.

Poppy had constituted herself every one's hand-maiden and handy-maiden.
If she were allowed to have a duster and dust-brush and help Esther, her
cup of joy was full, but she was just as pleased to run to the post, or to
the shops, or to help Ephraim gather windfalls in the orchard, dig
potatoes, or assist Anna in any way she was allowed to. And now that her
parsley bed was really in full growth, in spite of its troubled beginning,
she was very full of happy importance. To be asked if she could spare a
pennyworth of parsley filled her with pleasure for days.

"I never saw anything like it," she would say seriously, shaking her
little purse the while. "It only cost me a penny, and I've made fourpence
by it already. I wonder every one doesn't grow parsley."

"If they did, dear, there would be no one to sell to," Cousin Charlotte
explained.

Of them all Penelope did least to help. She had her flowers--quite a
collection of them now. "But she doesn't do anything with them,"