"Silence!" exclaimed the old hen to her, one day. "You are the plague and the disgrace of my family; you are too thin to boil, too small to roast, your eggs will not be worth eating, and you are too selfish to make a good mother. Get away with you—you are the black sheep of my brood. Your are neither fit to live or die!"

Time passed on, and Biddy increased in beauty so rapidly, that her mistress was determined to send her to the Poultry Show at the Crystal Palace. Every one said Biddy ought to go, her beauty was so great. She was so perfect a specimen of a white Dorking-she was so exactly what every white Dorking pullet ought to beand so seldom was,-that she ought to be exhibited to the admiring world, and would be certain to win the first prize of the first class.

POOR BIDDY! From the day it was determined that she was to go to the Poultry Show, her trials commenced. A young lady's preparation for a birthday was nothing to it. When first it was whispered in the poultry-yard that Biddy was to go to the Crystal Palace as a "show," she certainly became elated. Sweet and amiable as she was, she manifested signs and symptoms of vanity, which her mother did not reprove as

she ought to have done. She would "prin" her feathers with her own beak, and call the attention of strange chickens to the even folds of those delicate feathers, and tell them to observe that Miss Biddy inherited her own peculiar carriage and distinguished air. The young neighbouring cocks chattered over the paling, saying that Miss Biddy walked so grand and stately, that they should not wonder if by-andbye she grew spurs and sported a crow! but Mrs. Dorking, in a great passion, declared that if they came there and were impertinent, she would set the dog at them! so they went away crest-fallen. As Biddy became vain she became useless! Instead of amusing herself and her family with little playful pretty ways, and labouring in a degree to earn her own livelihood-chasing flies, and scratching up worms, and watching under the old oak for young cockchafers, she would call impatiently for food to be laid down before her; and the cook would absolutely drive away every fowl and chicken until she was satisfied! After a little more time had passed, she was removed altogether from the companionship of her relatives, placed

in a large room, fed with chopped chesnuts and milk, and minced liver, and delicate lettuce. This was very pleasant, as long as it lasted; but one morning she was immersed in warm water, rubbed over gently with a soaped flannel, and dried before the fire. She was turned over and over, first on one side, then on the other-a sort of roasting rehearsal, which, if she had understood, might have rendered her uncomfortable. As it was, she made great use both of her beak and her feet, and certainly of her voice, with the hope of escape; but she bore it with rather a better grace when the cook called the other servants to admire the beauty of her legs, the length of her toes, and the snowy whiteness of her really beautiful plumage.

"If she doesn't win first prize, I'm a Dutchwoman, that's certain!" exclaimed the cook, folding her hands over Biddy's wings, to prevent her springing through the window, and holding her over the table so that her feet just rested upon it.

"I think we ought to keep her under a washing-tub, or in a basket, until the time comes. She will be sure to get dirty in that barn, and then I shall have all my trouble over again!"

Biddy began to think, when a new hen-coop was turned over her instead of either washingtub or basket, that her mother must have had a sorry time of it when she was placed under similar restraint, while all her little chickens ran about her as she kept clucking and turning round and round like a teetotum; and yet, on consideration, she thought her mother was the best off of the two, as her children interested and amused her.

"I have nothing to amuse me," she said; "and I am so well aware of being a remarkably handsome pullet-in fact, a perfect and beautiful specimen of my family, a charming and lovely Dorking, that I am fatigued by hearing nothing else from morning till night from those huge human beings, who prove they desire to resemble us, by always walking about on their hind legs!"

Still, despite her little affectations, Biddy would have given one of the best feathers in her tail for a race after a cockchafer, or a downright good scratch round the melon-pit, where she knew the best worms were to be had. Her trials-her real trials soon began. The coachman took her, at the appointed time, to be