world with round, bright, winking eyes; and gradually the
brood was hatched, and Mrs. Feathertop arose, a proud and happy mother,
with all the bustling, scratching, caretaking instincts of family
life warm within her breast. She clucked and scratched, and cuddled
the little downy bits of things as handily and discreetly as a
seven-year-old hen could have done, exciting thereby the wonder of the
community.

Master Gray Cock came home in high spirits and complimented her; told
her she was looking charmingly once more, and said, "Very well, very
nice!" as he surveyed the young brood. So that Mrs. Feathertop began
to feel the world going well with her, when suddenly in came Dame
Scratchard and Goody Kertarkut to make a morning call.

"Let's see the chicks," said Dame Scratchard.

"Goodness me," said Goody Kertarkut, "what a likeness to their dear
papa!"

"Well, but bless me, what's the matter with their bills?" said Dame
Scratchard. "Why, my dear, these chicks are deformed! I'm sorry for you,
my dear, but it's all the result of your inexperience; you ought to have
eaten pebble-stones with your meal when you were setting. Don't you see,
Dame Kertarkut, what bills they have? That'll increase, and they'll be
frightful!"

"What shall I do?" said Mrs. Feathertop, now greatly alarmed.

"Nothing as I know of," said Dame Scratchard, "since you didn't come to
me before you set. I could have told you all about it. Maybe it won't
kill 'em, but they'll always be deformed."

And so the gossips departed, leaving a sting under the pin-feathers of
the poor little hen mamma, who began to see that her darlings had
curious little spoon-bills different from her own, and to worry and fret
about it.

"My dear," she said to her spouse, "do get Doctor Peppercorn to come in
and look at their bills, and see if anything can be done."

Doctor Peppercorn came in, and put on a monstrous pair of spectacles and
said: "Hum! Ha! Extraordinary case--very singular!"

"Did you ever see anything like it, Doctor?" said both parents, in a
breath.

"I've read of such cases. It's a calcareous enlargement of the vascular
bony tissue, threatening ossification," said the Doctor.

"Oh, dreadful!--can it be possible?" shrieked both parents. "Can
anything be done?"

"Well, I should recommend a daily lotion made of mosquitoes' horns and
bicarbonate of frogs' toes together with a powder, to be taken morning
and night, of muriate of fleas. One thing you mus