tell them yes, and then set the dog on them!" I said, savagely.

"You poor thing!" said Bee. "It's a shame the way people torment you."

Billy crowded past his mother, and climbed into my lap.

"Tell me a story, dear Tattah," said this born wheedler, patting my
face with his little black paw.

"No, now Billy--" began Bee.

"Let him stay," I cried, casting down my pen. "It is so seldom that he
cuddles that I'll sacrifice myself upon the altar of aunthood. Well,
once upon a time, Billy, there was a dear little blue hen who stole
away--sit still now! You've more legs than a centipede!--who stole
away every day and went under the barn where it was so cool and shady,
and laid a lovely little smooth, cream-coloured egg. Then when she had
laid it, she was so proud that she could never help coming out and
cackling at the top of her voice, 'Cut-cut-cut-ka-dah-cut!' And then
the lady of the house would run out and say, 'Oh, there's that naughty
little blue hen cackling over a new-laid egg which I did want so much
to make an omelette, but I don't know where she has laid it. The
naughty little blue hen!' So the poor lady would be obliged to use the
red hen's eggs for the omelette, because the little blue hen laid
_hers_ under the barn.

"Well, after the little blue hen had laid six beautiful cream-coloured
eggs, she began to sit on them day after day, covering them with her
feathers, and tucking her lovely little blue wings down around the
edges of her nest to keep the eggs warm, and day after day she sat and
dreamed of six darling little yellow, fluffy chickens with brown wings
and sparkling black eyes and dear little peepy voices, and she was so
happy in thinking of her little children that she was as patient as
possible, and never seemed to care that all the other hens and chickens
were running about in the warm yellow sunshine and snapping up lively
little shiny bugs with their yellow beaks.

"Well, after awhile, this dear little patient blue hen heard the
funniest little tapping, tapping, tapping under her wings." Billy's
eyes nearly bulged out of his head as he tapped the arm of the chair as
I did. "And then she felt the most curious little fluttering under her
wings--oh, Billy, _what_ do you think this little blue hen felt
fluttering under her wings?"

"A _omelette_!" said Billy, excitedly.

I finished the Jimmies as an anticlimax.

_Mr. and Mrs. Jimmie at Canterbury_.

It did not disturb Jimmie t