The dog looked pleadingly at his little mistress’ face, then into the woman’s stern countenance. Seeing no reprieve in either, with drooping tail he slunk into the cage. With one hand clutching her frock over her heart, Carolyn May’s big blue eyes overflowed. “It’s just as if he was arrested,” she said. “Poor Prince! Has he got to stay there _always_, Aunty Rose?” “He’ll stay till he learns his lesson,” said Mrs. Kennedy grimly, and went on into the garden. Carolyn May sat down close to the side of the cage, thrust one hand between the slats, and held one of the dog’s front paws. She had hoped to go into the garden to help Aunty Rose pick peas, but she could not bear to leave Prince alone. By-and-by Mrs. Kennedy came up from the garden, her pan heaped with pods. She looked neither in the direction of the prisoner nor at his little mistress. Carolyn May wanted awfully to shell the peas. She liked to shell peas, and Aunty Rose had more in her pan than the little girl had ever shelled at one time at home. Prince whined and lay down. He had begun to realise now that this was no play, at all, but punishment. He blinked his eyes at Carolyn May and looked as sorry as ever a dog with cropped ears and an abbreviated tail could look. The hutch was under a wide-branching tree. It was shady, and the bees hummed. A motherly hen with thirteen black chickens paraded by. “I wonder,” thought Carolyn May dozily, “how the mother can be so white and her family can be so black. I believe there must be a mistake somewhere. Suppose they shouldn’t turn out to be chickens at all, but crows! Maybe she was fooled about the eggs. You often _are_ fooled about eggs, you know. You can’t tell by the outside of an eggshell whether what’s inside is fresh or not. “And if those are little crows, and not chicks, they’ll fly right up into the air some day and leave her, and go sailing off across the brook, saying, ‘Caw! Caw! Caw!’” “Why, there they go now!” gasped Carolyn May—only, she _thought_ she gasped, just as she _thought_ she saw the baker’s dozen of chicks flying across the brook—for she was fast asleep and dreaming. Prince slept, too, and fought imaginary battles with the turkey cock in his dreams, jerking all four of his legs, and growling dreadfully. Carolyn May went wandering through fairyland, perhaps following the chicken-crows she had first imagined. The peas and potatoes were cooking for dinner when Aunty Rose appeared again. There was the little girl, all of a dewy sleep, lying on the grass by the prison-pen. Aunty Rose would have released Prince, but, though he wagged his stump of a tail at her and yawned and blinked, she had still her doubts regarding a mongrel’s good nature. She could not allow the child to sleep there, however; so, stooping, picked up Carolyn May and carried her comfortably into the house, laying her down on the sitting-room couch to have her nap out—as she supposed, without awakening her.