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One evening, guests or no guests, she escaped after tea. It was late, and she fled across the park like one who fears to be called back. The sun was setting rosy as she entered the wood, but she pressed on among the flowers. The light would last long overhead.

She arrived at the clearing flushed and semiconscious. The keeper was there, in his shirtsleeves, just closing up the coops for the night, so the little occupants would be safe. But still one little trio was pattering about on tiny feet, alert drab mites, under the straw shelter, refusing to be called in by the anxious mother.

“I had to come and see the chickens!” she said, panting, glancing shyly at the keeper, almost unaware of him. “Are there any more?”

“Thurty-six so far!” he said. “Not bad!”

He too took a curious pleasure in watching the young things come out.

Connie crouched in front of the last coop. The three chicks had run in. But still their cheeky heads came poking sharply through the yellow feathers, then withdrawing, then only one beady little head eyeing forth from the vast mother-body.

“I’d love to touch them,” she said, putting her fingers gingerly through the bars of the coop. But the mother hen pecked at her hand fiercely, and Connie drew back startled and frightened.

“How she pecks at me! She hates me!” she said in a wondering voice. “But I wouldn’t hurt them!”

The man standing above her laughed, and crouched down beside her, knees apart, and put his hand with quiet confidence slowly into the coop. The old hen pecked at him, but not so savagely. And slowly, softly, with sure gentle fingers, he felt among the old bird’s feathers and drew out a faintly-peeping chick in his closed hand.