"Why was it that Penelope always attracted all the notice, and made friends, and got the very things she longed for?" she asked herself angrily. She wished she had said she would like to learn to play the organ, and had made friends with Miss Row; then perhaps she would have had lovely flowers given her, and be thought a lot of. Having finished her task she picked up her things and walked away into the house. Penelope looked after her, a little hurt at her seeming want of interest. Angela and Poppy had dropped their play and were bubbling over with joyful sympathy. "Angela dear," said Miss Charlotte, "will you go to the henhouse for me, and see if there are any eggs there?" Angela was delighted. She was always longing to be employed, and she loved anything to do with the fowls or the garden. Miss Ashe's fowl-houses were models of what fowl-houses should be, airy, snug, and beautifully clean; and her fowls were something to be proud of. Angela ran off at once, found three eggs, and took them into the house. Miss Ashe was busy in the pantry tying down jam. "I wonder if you could mark them for me," she said. "My fingers are very sticky." Angela took the pencil and did her best. The figures were clumsy, but they were her neatest. They were something like this--22/6. She looked up at her cousin with shamed eyes and rosy cheeks as she held out the eggs. "That will do," said Miss Charlotte kindly. "You will soon be able to make tiny figures." Then, as Esther had done once before, Angela put the eggs in their box; but Esther had forgotten all about her first task in her anxiety to get others. "Cousin Charlotte, if I learn to write better, may I always collect the eggs and mark them? I'd love to. I love the chicken and fowls, and I'd try to do it properly." She was very eager and very shy about making her request. "I shall be very glad indeed of your help," said Cousin Charlotte. "Anna seems too busy and Ephraim forgets; he thinks eggs and hens too unimportant for his notice. I, though, think them very important indeed; they make quite a nice little addition to one's income, I find." "Do they?" said Angela, full of interest. "When I grow up I shall keep fowls too, I think." "You will have to learn all about them first," said Cousin Charlotte, "but that you can begin to do at once. You have them here always under your eyes, and you must keep your eyes open and take in all you can." Angela felt, as Penelope had done, that all her dearest wishes were being granted at once. "Is there something else I can do for you, Cousin Charlotte?" she asked. "Yes, dear, if you will. I want to send those fresh eggs up to Miss Bazeley. She has a lady lodging there who is ill, and Miss Bazeley's hens seem to have all stopped laying just as she most wants fresh eggs." "I'd like to go. I'll go now," said Angela, running off to get her hat.