"Laws, no!" said the cook. "Fats 'em up." He went inside, and
reappeared with a pan full of scraps of meat and crusts of bread.

"Oh, I say!" cried Dunham. "Haven't you got some grain, you know,
of some sort; some seeds, don't you know?"

"They will like this," said Lydia, while the cook stared in
perplexity. She took the pan, and opening the little door of the coop
flung the provision inside. But the fowls were either too depressed
in spirit to eat anything, or they were not hungry; they remained in
their corner, and merely fell silent, as if a new suspicion had been
roused in their unhappy breasts.

"Dey'll come, to it," observed the cook.

Dunham felt far from content, and regarded the poultry with silent
disappointment. "Are you fond of pets?" he asked, after a while.

"Yes, I used to have pet chickens when I was a little thing."

"You ought to adopt one of these," suggested Dunham. "That white one
is a pretty creature."

"Yes," said Lydia. "He looks as if he were Leghorn. Leghorn breed,"
she added, in reply to Dunham's look of inquiry. "He's a beauty."

"Let me get him out for you a moment!" cried the young man, in his
amiable zeal. Before Lydia could protest, or the cook interfere, he
had opened the coop-door and plunged his arm into the tumult which