My New Zealand Garden 63 



from the chimney piece ! Then she donned her 

 apron and proceeded to ice a cake. She procured 

 unbeaten whites of eggs, as she said sweetened to 

 taste, and immersed the cake in them to a great 

 depth and all round, and promised us that the 

 next morning it would look like snow. But, alas ! 

 next morning the cake appeared to be suffering 

 from the effects of rain. It was terribly puffed up, 

 but no snow anywhere ; it was saturated with 

 white of egg and to spare. We grasped the 

 situation, and quickly had it into a basin, beating 

 it up hard ; and with the addition of lemon essence 

 it turned into an excellent pudding, the surplus 

 white of egg being beaten up separately for the 

 top. 



Eggs were in such plenty that when one went 

 through some of the paddocks, up rose the hens 

 from their nests in the rushes, flying like 

 pheasants. A tame band, however, kept guard 

 outside the back-door, and a still worse band 

 inside. One took the liberty of laying an egg in 

 my daughter's doll's cradle beside the doll ; others 

 laid under the house, which gave us some trouble, 

 as the nests could only be approximately located 

 by the cackle, and a board in the floor had to be 

 lifted to get at the eggs. It was not so much the 

 value of them which necessitated the upheaval of 

 the floors as the knowledge that several hens 

 were using the same nest, and that through too 



