1. Weeks went by. Snowdrop thought that it was time for her to bring some more little ducklings into the world, instead of those which she had lost.  
2. So, down among the green rushes at the very brink¹ of the pond, she made a nest. It was not much more than a[Pg 137] bundle² of straws which the wind had swept into that place but it did very well.
 
3. Snowdrop had poked³ the straws into a heap⁴ with her beak⁵. She trod⁶ them down with her feet, made a round hole with her breast in the middle, and put a few feathers inside.
 
4. In this rough nest she laid seven pale green eggs, and very pretty they looked. Betty no sooner heard of this, than she ran as fast as she could to the spot. She had a kind thought in her head.
 
5. She had now no little ones of her own; and somehow, though she laid an egg each day in the wicker nest, it was always gone before night. So she had nothing to sit on.
 
6. And so it had come into her good heart that she would offer to sit on Snowdrop's eggs for her. "I promise you to do it well," said she to the duck.
 
7. "If you trust me with your eggs I will treat them just as if they were my own. And when the young are hatched⁷ I will nurse the dear little things, teach[Pg 138] them, and bring them up better than you could do yourself."
 
8. The duck, who just then saw her drake bowing his head to her as he swam along, thought that she would like to ............