'Now, suppose it should rain,' suggested Clara, 'what becomes of your pretty frock and your white feather?' 'There is not the least likelihood of rain,' replied Mabel; 'I never saw a finer evening;' and away she ran downstairs, but taking care to avoid a meeting with her aunt until they were all ready to start. It was indeed a lovely evening for a walk. It had been very hot at one time of the day, but there had been a thunder-shower in the afternoon, which had cooled the air, and given freshness of colouring to the surrounding vegetation, deepening the tints on flower and shrub and tree, while, 'The ling'ring sun seem'd loth to leave Landskip so fair, to gentle eve.' Aunt Mary, though of course she noticed the difference in the dresses of her nieces, said nothing about it; but kept up, as she usually did, a conversation both amusing and instructive. Even Mabel forgot her fine clothes in listening to her aunt, and for the present seemed to be thrown out of self. Such a charm is there in wise teaching. Nor when they reached the pretty, secluded vicarage, and were heartily welcomed by its inmates, were the fears of Mabel at all likely to be realised, as instead of having to listen to a sermon, or details of old and sick people, she and Clara were walked off by Robert and Edith Newlove, to see the rabbits, and the ringdoves, and the poultry in their respective habitations. 'How beautiful they are--- how very beautiful!' said Clara, speaking of the ringdoves; 'and so gentle too--they don't fight and squabble like my hens do over a few grains of wheat.' 'Oh, they can peck one another sometimes,' said Edith; 'but they are not noisy about it like the fowls.' 'And my rabbits are not at all noisy either,' said Robert; 'but the buck can be very cruel, for if we don't take care he makes nothing of eating up one or two of the little ones.' 'Horrid creatures!' said Mabel. 'I shall never like rabbits again; it is quite shocking.' 'It would indeed be quite shocking if they knew better,' replied Robert; 'but they don't, so we must try to prevent them from acting cruelly. And after all,' he added, 'it is not half so bad as boys and girls doing wrong when they know better; yet we should not say of them that we should never like them again, should we, Miss Mabel?' 'No, I suppose not,' said the conscience stricken girl, as she found herself standing before the fowls' house, which was the very model of Clara's, and indeed had been made by the same industrious hands, namely those of poor Simmons, who was now, and had been for months, lying on the bed of languishing. 'You see the fowls are all gone to roost,' said Edith; 'the dear little chicks are under their mother's wing. I do wish you could have seen them; there are ten such beauties!'