The very next day, we observed papa very deeply engaged with his compass and scale; and in a few hours he called Jane and me to look at a plan he had been drawing for a regular set of rabbit-hutches, to be erected in the root-house, for the better accommodation of our stock, which had been increased to four does and a buck, by my brothers having purchased two halfgrown rabbits. You may easily conceive the feelings of delight with which we watched the progress of the building, which was carried on in a small outhouse adjoining the granary, fitted up as a sort of work-shop, in which papa kept a variety of tools and materials for carpentering-work. Instead of following our usual sports, or sources of amusement, the moment we were released from the study, with one accord, my sisters Jane and Susanna, with my brothers and myself, hastened to the workshop, to visit papa and his workmen; pleased enough, if we found employment

in holding a hammer or chisel, or handing a nail or screw. The rabbit-house consisted of six complete hutches, with outer and inner rooms for each rabbit. The outer room was about two feet and a half square, communicating with the inner chamber or sleeping place by means of an open arch, after the manner of the holes in a pigeonlocker, only large enough to allow of the free egress and regress of the animal: this sleeping berth had an outer door, which was kept fastened, excepting when we had occasion to put in fresh litter; the outer chamber was furnished with a door, strongly wired in front, and with a nice lidded trough, which was kept shut by means of a peg and string.

When our rabbit-house was finished, it was fixed up at one end of the root-house. The space below was closely paled in with a moveable gate or lift, as some people call it; and this place we termed the park, which served for the free

range

of our

little

rabbits when taken off the mother; and: a pretty sight it was to see a dozen or two of these innocent little creatures skipping about or standing on their hind legs, and begging for the green herbs and vegetables, as frolicsome and free as though they were abroad in the fields or war

rens.

Besides the hutches for the breeding does, we had two nice large boxes fixed up, and wired in front, with sliding doors and troughs, one for the buck and the other as a fatting-house; nothing could be more comfortably or conveniently arranged than our rabbit-house was, and the only restriction laid upon us by papa was this—that we should be particularly careful in fastening all our doors and troughs, that the rabbits might not again inconvenience him by getting into the garden, and destroying his vegetables and flowers.

Our rabbits throve so well in their new hutches, that in the course of a few months

the park was filled with black, white, grey, and fawn-coloured rabbits.

Of a fine warm spring day my sisters and I used to treat our respective families with a gambol in the meadow, conveying them in baskets or in our laps to a warm sunny slope, enamelled with daisies, cowslips, buttercups, primroses, and that gay and beautiful little meadow-flower that is commonly called golden trefoil. There, seated on the ground so as to form a guard over our pets to prevent them from wandering too far, we permitted them to crop the flowery herbage, and watched their frolicsome gambols among the daisies and buttercups with infinite delight.

If any one of the little tenants strayed beyond the limits allotted for their sports, and became at all refractory, we punished the rebel by imprisoning him in the basket till he became more manageable. One of these little creatures contrived to elude our watchful care, and charmed with the liberty

D

he had been permitted as a favour to enjoy, ran off to the neighbouring plantation, and we never again beheld him.

On the whole, our rabbits' lives were as happy as creatures under a state of confinement could possibly be; none of our rabbits ever suffered from neglect or unkindness: if one of us was sick or from home, the other supplied her place, and fed her rabbits with the same attentiveness as if they had been their own. As to Susanna and I, we agreed to go partners in our rabbits, which plan answered the interest of both parties, and as we never disagreed or quarrelled when children, this partnership proved a very comfortable arrangement.

For the first year after the hutches were built, our rabbits throve exceedingly; some few we lost during the winter, from the excessive coldness of the season, which was unusually inclement, and some from want

proper management with regard to the quality of their food; but in spite of these