And the rose-bushes look as wick as wick can be, and there are primroses in the lanes and woods, and the seeds we planted are up, and Dickon has brought the fox and the crow and the squirrels and a new-born lamb." And then she paused for breath.

The new-born lamb Dickon had found three days before lying by its dead mother among the gorse bushes on the moor.

It was not the first motherless lamb he had found and he knew what to do with it.

He had taken it to the cottage wrapped in his jacket and he had let it lie near the fire and had fed it with warm milk.

It was a soft thing with a darling silly baby face and legs rather long for its body.