things running over it, as well as a great park of their own having

countless avenues of rush, ragwort, and thistle-stump--where would they

have deserved to be, if they had not been contented? Content they

were, and even joyful at the proper time of day. Joyful in the morning,

because the sun was come again; joyful in the middle day to see how well

the world went; and in the evening merry with the tricks of their own

shadows.

Quite fifteen stepping-stones stepped up--if you counted three that were

made of wood--to soothe the dignity of the brook in its last fresh-water

moments, rather than to gratify the dry-skin'd soles of gentlefolk. For

any one, with a five-shilling pair of boots to terminate in, might skip

dry-footed across the sandy purlings of the rivulet. And only when a

flood came down, or the head of some springtide came up, did any but

playful children tread the lichened cracks of the stepping-stones. And

nobody knew this better than Horatia Dorothy Darling.

The bunnies who lived to the west of the brook had reconciled their

minds entirely now to the rising of that boat among them. At first it

made a noise, and scratched the sand, and creaking things came down to

it; and when the moon came through its ribs in the evening, tail was

the quarter to show to it. But as it went on naturally growing, seldom

appearing to make much noise, unless there was a man very near it, and

even then keeping him from doing any harm--outside the disturbance that

he lives in--without so much as a council called, they tolerated this

encroachment. Some of the bolder fathers came and sat inside to

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