g as that.

But presently the Hind led him away and asked the Blackcock, "And
where is my sister?" And the Blackcock led them on, and after a time,
to the Calf's delight, they came in sight of two more Hinds and
another little Calf. And all three caught the wind of them and came
forward to meet them. One of the Hinds was very big and grey, and she
had no Calf, but the other was smaller and bright red, and had at her
foot as sweet a little Calf as ever you saw; and it was the smaller of
the two Hinds that came to them first. Then both of the mothers laid
their Calves down, and began to talk, but they had hardly exchanged a
word, when the old grey Hind broke in.

"So it's you, Tawny, is it?" she said; "and you have brought a Calf
with you, I see. I suppose I must ask, is it a stag or a hind?"

"A stag, Aunt Yeld," said the Lady Tawny (for that was the name of our
Calf's mother); "do look at him for a minute. He does look so sweet in
his bed."

"A stag, is it?" said Aunt Yeld with a little sniff. "Well, I suppose
if people must have calves they had better have stags. Ruddy's here is
a hind, but I never could see the attraction of any calf myself." For
Aunt Yeld, like some old maids (but by no means like all) that have no
children of their own, thought it the right thing to look down on
Calves; and indeed she was rather a formidable old lady. She had two
very big tushes in her upper jaw, which she was constantly showing,
and she made a great point (when she was not flurried) of closing the
claws of her hoofs very tight, and letting her hind-feet fall exactly
where her fore-feet had fallen, which she knew to be the way of a
stag.

"And now that you have brought your calves here," continued Aunt Yeld,
"I may as well tell you that the sooner you take them away the better,
for there is a Greyhen here with a brood, who never ceases to pester
me with enquiries about a poult which she has lost. It's not my
business to look after people's poults; if they can't take care of
them themselves, they had better not have them, I say. The bird's an
idiot, I think. I questioned her pretty closely, and she really seemed
not very clear whether she had really lost a poult or not."

But the two Mother-Hinds looked at their calves and said:

"Poor thing;" and Ruddy's Calf which was feeling perhaps a little
lonely, uttered a plaintive little bleat.

"Ruddy," said Aunt Yeld severely, "if your child is going to make that
noise, I really m