ou about heard the cry, and looking up from her
reading, saw the big umbrella go rolling past, followed by the
frightened, crying little girl. Down the steps she ran and out into
the street after the umbrella. "Bump," it went up against a telephone
pole and the wind left it there. In a moment the lady had it in her
hand.

"I want it down, oh, please, I want it down." sobbed Marjorie all out
of breath.

"Now, it's all right. Don't cry any more," said the lady as she put it
down and handed it to Marjorie, kissing her little tear-stained face.

Marjorie clung to it with both hands and started for home. She wanted
to put the umbrella back by the hall tree, and tell mother all about
the runaway.--_Written for Dew Drops by Flora Louise Whitmore._

* * * * *

THE ADOPTED BROOD.

"Oh, look, Bobby!" said Betty, as she jumped out of the swing, and
went running down toward the hayfield. "Here comes Joe, and he has
something to show us. I know it's a surprise."

Bobby looked, and then he and Betty went running to meet Joe, who was
coming along the path by the orchard. He was carrying his straw hat
carefully in one hand, and beckoning with his other hand for the
children to hurry and see the surprise.

"What have you got?" shouted both the children, excitedly, as they
came near.

"Eggs." said Joe.

"Oh, eggs," said Bobby and Betty. "Eggs--why eggs are nothing to see.
We find them every day."

"Yes," said Joe, "but these are not hen's eggs--they are pheasant's
eggs!"

Bobby and Betty looked, and sure enough, in Joe's hat were seven
eggs--olive-brown in color.

"We were mowing in the meadow," said Joe, "and we almost ran over a
mother pheasant on her nest. She flew up right under the horse's feet,
and old Nell almost stepped into the nest. I took all the eggs,
because a pheasant will not come back to the nest after she has been
frightened away. She finds another place and makes a new nest. She
won't go back to the old one."

"Well," said Bobby, "what are you going to do with the eggs?"

"Oh," said Joe, "I'm going to put them under that little brown bantam
hen that wants to set, and let her hatch them."

So Bobby and Betty went with Joe, and watched him while he made a
comfortable nest in an old box in the shop loft. Then he put the seven
eggs in the nest carefully, and got the little bantam hen and put her
in, too. She clucked and scolded, and when Joe put her in the box she
stood