well, and give me no cause to feel shame when she sees how
I have brought you up. Now, Forward! March!"

* * * * *

_Write:_ The young ducks had never seen a pond. Their foster-mother
made them tidy. She wished to take them into the world and show them
their mother.

Questions: 1. What did the other hens say of Betty and her
brood? 2. What did the gander say? 3. What bird came to pick
up wheat with the fowls? 4. What did the turkey-cock do? 5.
What did Betty say to her ducklings before taking them into
the world? 6. To whom did she wish to show them?

12. THEIR OWN MOTHER.

1. And where was Snowdrop to be found? At the pond, of course, swimming
round and round with half-a-dozen other ducks and drakes as happy and
careless as herself.

2. She swam towards the brink when she saw Betty coming. The ducklings
waddled as fast as they could lay their flat feet to the ground, as
soon as they caught sight of the pond.

[Illustration: THE FIRST SWIM.]

3. Betty could not keep up with them, for she had never quite lost a
limp, after having her toe bitten off. "See," she said to Snowdrop, as
she hobbled up, "here are your children.

4. "Look at them well! How unlike they are to any ducklings you ever
brought up yourself! There are no ducks in the whole yard that can
compare with them. Just watch how well they behave."

5. "Quack!" said Snowdrop. "It is all because of the pains I have
taken," said Betty.

"Quack, quack!" said Snowdrop again.

6. "They have never been tempted to go into horrid cold water. They
have never even seen a pond till now. What do you say to that?"

7. "Quack, quack, quack!" replied the snowy sailor, glancing her bright
eye upon her little ones. The next moment the merry little ducks were
sailing after her round the pond!

8. They dived head foremost, they grubbed for leeches, they paddled
with their flat feet as if they had done nothing else since they were
out of the shell.

9. Poor Betty with outspread wings danced round the pond crying at the
top of her shrill voice, "Come back! come back! You will all be
drowned."

10. But it was useless. The little ducks would obey her no longer. They
went on swimming about after their own lily-white mother.

11. Snowdrop swam to the edge at last, and spoke thus to Betty. "I
thank you for the good you meant to me and mine. But dry land will not
give us your sharp toes to scratch with, any