had been dipped in liquid silver. When she was scratching for worms
out in the yard, and the sun shone on her, she was absolutely
dazzling, and sent little bright reflections into the neighbors'
windows, as if she were really solid silver.

Dame Penny had a sunny little coop with a padlocked door for her, and
she always locked it very carefully every night. So it was doubly
perplexing when the hen disappeared. Dame Penny remembered distinctly
locking the coop-door; several circumstances had served to fix it on
her mind. She had started out without her overshoes, then had returned
for them because the snow was quite deep and she was liable to
rheumatism. Then Dame Louisa who lived next door had rapped on her
window, and she had run in there for a few moments with the hen-coop
key dangling on its blue ribbon from her wrist, and Dame Louisa had
remarked that she would lose that key if she were not more careful.
Then when she returned home across the yard a doubt had seized her,
and she had tried the coop-door to be sure that she had really
fastened it.

[Illustration: THE SNOW WAS QUITE DEEP.]

The next morning when she fitted the key into the padlock and threw
open the door, and no silver hen came clucking out, it was very
mysterious. Dame Louisa came running to the fence which divided her
yard from Dame Penny's, and stood leaning on it with her apron over
her head.

"Are you sure that hen was in the coop when you locked the door?" said
she.