“Aren’t they dears?” said the mother, who forgot all her rage when she heard her aunt’s praises.
“Let me take one of them to walk with,” said auntie.
“Not while I live!” said the mother, severely. “I know too well how flighty you are, auntie. My children are mine and nobody else’s and mine they shall remain.”
At that moment, a shot rang out through the air.
It was a silly shot, fired at random by a silly boy who wanted to show off his father’s gun. But the gun was loaded and the shot spread and Mother Eider-Duck sank to the ground with a scream.
“My young ones! My young ones!” she moaned.
“They’re all right, all five of them,” said auntie. “Be easy. But what’s the matter?”
“I’m dying,” said the mother. “I am full of shot. I know for certain that I’m dying. Oh, my children, my children!”
“Never mind about them,” said auntie. “I shall be a mother to them in your stead and look after them as if they were my own.”
“Oh, auntie,” said the mother, in a feeble voice, “you are so terribly frivolous. I have seen you myself from up there, playing and fooling about with the men and the girls on the beach. How can a mother trust her children to you?”