144 THE WISE GOOSE.

The redstart was anxious to see that Harry did not squeeze
his hand down the hole, for he had four beautiful blue eggs
down there. But Harry soon turned away and began to peer
into the hedge. A blackbird flew out chuckling ; she had been
sitting on her nest, and Harry could scarcely help finding it.
There were eggs in the nest, greyish-green, speckled and warm,
but not made of gold at all.

Near that place he found the nest of a thrush, yet he could
see ina minute that the thrush’s eggs were not golden either,
but sky-blue, spotted with a few black dots.

Foolish Harry! All the day was going by while he was
idling.

The birds were all busy—the robin fetching dainties for
his wife as she sat on her nest in the quarry taking care of her
pretty white eggs, each with a crown of pink speckles at the
large end; the yellow-hammer, with a head the colour of a
primrose, was flitting back to hers, which were covered all over
with scribbles, as if some one who didn't know how to write
properly had been scrawling on the dim coloured shells with a
pen and ink. No two kinds of birds had eggs alike, but each
his own sort, and yet among them all Harry could not find a
single nest which had golden eggs in itor even silver iones,
although he searched for hours, while Silly Billy, hardly raising
his eyes from the ground, went on with the stick gathering.

Presently, as he was loitering along the hedge-side, he
came to a gap through which he could plainly see the shed, in
a corner of the orchard, where the goose was sitting.

“JT am sure she could spare one egg,” said Harry to
himself.

He stepped through the gap and began to walk towards
the shed, treading quietly on tiptoe, for he did not want to
make the goose angry.