But it’s only a smile that can bring us away.
THE SPECKLED HEN.
There was once a hen with brown speckled wings and a short black tail. She stood in a shop window, on a bit of wood covered with green baize, and kept watch over the eggs with which the window was filled.
“I may be stuffed,” said the hen, “but I hope I know my duty for all that!”
There were many eggs, and some of them were very different from the eggs to which she had been accustomed; but she did not see what she could do about that.
“Their mothers must be people of very vulgar tastes,” she said, “or else fashions have changed sadly. In my day a hen who laid red or blue or green eggs would have been chased out of the barnyard; but the world has gone steadily backward since then, I have reason to think.”
She was silent, and fixed her eyes on a large white egg which had been recently placed in the window.