But Crona laughed and talked so quietly and nicely that she soon had Lotty smiling also. After the witch's heather-ale and the scones the spring air felt warmer, and something of its freshness seemed to have returned to the greenery of woods and wilds, the crimson and yellow and white of the flowers, and the gold of the scented furze. She felt she could even take an interest in Crona's pets now, and was a little cross with herself for not having asked before how little Tim was, for this affectionate mite had been ailing; but her godmother said he was once more as hearty and robust as before his indisposition. She told Lotty that she had journeyed six miles to procure certain roots for Tim, and that from the very day he had begun to nibble these there had been a marked change in both his physical and mental condition. And he slept now every night under pussy's chin. To-day Wallace had found Tod Lowrie just commencing to feast upon a fine fat fowl, but which particular farmyard it had come from inquiry by Crona had failed as yet to elicit, only she always paid for Lowrie's extravagances. Wallace stood over Tod Lowrie for a moment, looking down at him with his head a bit to one side. 'Dear me, Lowrie,' he said, 'you'll never get through that fowl all by yourself. Then the bones you know--just fancy how you'd feel if a bone stuck in your throat and you required to send for Dr Heron to take it out! But,' continued Wallace, 'I have an excellent method of dealing with dead fowls. Artistic in a manner of speaking. Permit me,' and he gently drew the fowl quite away from the fox, and retired with it under the dais. Poor Tod Lowrie had simply to sit on his haunches and look on; and, truth to say, all his share consisted of the feet and the head and the feathers. 'Beautiful, isn't it?' said Wallace when he had finished. 'Beautiful!' said Lowrie with a deep sigh. All Crona's pets loved each other, and agreed very well on the whole; but of course little differences will at times arise in the best-regulated families. Pussy and Joe to-day, for example, had a little dispute on the boards. Cats seem cruel; but it is just their nature, and perhaps they are no worse than human beings. Anyhow, pussy to-day had returned from the forest with two baby hedgehogs; she had killed them both, and now kept one safely between her forelegs until she should finish eating the other. And Joe chose to be very nasty and sarcastic about it, though of course she wasn't bound to go and catch young hedgehogs for him. He stood, showing an attitude of impudent grace, some two feet from her.