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Book, page 81 / 462 "Take it, then, child," said he, pulling it off--"I shall soon have no coat to dry--and take my hat, too," said he, throwing it upon the ground. Susan hung up his hat, put his coat over the back of a chair to dry, and then stood anxiously looking at her mother, who was not well; she had this day fatigued herself with baking; and now, alarmed by her husband's moody behaviour, she sat down pale and trembling. He threw himself into a chair, folded his arms, and fixed his eyes upon the fire. Susan was the first who ventured to break silence. Happy the father who has such a daughter as Susan!--her unaltered sweetness of temper, and her playful, affectionate caresses, at last somewhat dissipated her father's melancholy. He could not be prevailed upon to eat any of the supper which had been prepared for him; however, with a faint smile, he told Susan that he thought he could eat one of her guinea-hen's eggs. She thanked him, and with that nimble alacrity which marks the desire to please, she ran to her neat chicken-yard; but, alas!, her guinea-hen was not there--it had strayed into the attorney's garden. She saw it through the paling, and timidly opening the little gate, she asked Miss Barbara, who was walking slowly by, to let her come in and take her guinea-hen. Barbara, who was at this instant reflecting, with no agreeable feelings, upon the conversation of the village children, to which she had recently listened, started when she heard Susan's voice, and with a proud, ill-humoured look and voice, refused her request. "Shut the gate," said Barbara, "you have no business in our garden; and as for your hen, I shall keep it; it is always flying in here, and plaguing us, and my father says it is a trespasser; and he told me I might catch it and keep it the next time it got in, and it is in now." Then Barbara called to her maid, Betty, and bid her catch the mischievous hen. "Oh, my guinea-hen! my pretty guinea-hen!" cried Susan, as they hunted the frightened, screaming creature from corner to corner. "Here we have got it!" said Betty, holding it fast by the legs. "Now pay damages, Queen Susan, or good-bye to your pretty guinea-hen,"
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