"
"You're quite the twelfth person who's mentioned that," Norah said,
with some asperity. "Anyhow, I never counted them; I only became rich
in a vague way, and it was very comforting. I'm glad I had that
comfort, for it was all I had."
"Norah, you thrill my very soul with awful fears," Wally gasped. "Tell
me the worst!"
"Donkey!" said Norah, unsympathetically. "Well, they were set. I fixed
up the boxes myself, and lined them so beautifully that when they were
ready, and the eggs in, it was all I could do to prevent myself sitting
on them!"
"I know," Wally nodded. "And then the hens wouldn't sit, would they?
They never do, when you make the nests especially tempting. I had an
old Cochin once who used to sit quite happily for six months at a time
on a clod and a bit of stone, expecting to hatch out a half-acre
allotment and a town hall; but if you put her on twelve beautiful eggs
she simply wouldn't look at them! Makes you vow you'll give up keeping
hens at all."
"It would," Norah said. "Only mine didn't do that."
"Oh!" said Wally, a little blankly. "What did they do, then?"
"Sat--"
"And ate the eggs--I know," Wally burst in. "My old brute used to eat
one a day if you got her to sit. I remember once it was a race between
her and the eggs, and I used to haunt the nest, wondering would she get
'em all eaten before they hatched.
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