102 FLUFF-BUTTON THE RABBIT 
Whether she noticed that one was missing I cannot 
say. The Fur Folk have no time to grieve. She 
gathered the three remaining ones together, and fed 
them and licked them all over tenderly with soft 
whisker kisses. 
They spent that night on the hill. When it 
rained the babies sheltered under their mother's soft 
coat and did not know how cold it was. Brownie 
could have told how sharp the night winds were, 
and how wet the ground, but the little bodies under 
her white vest were warm, and that was compensa- 
tion enough for her. 
The next day they again lay out on the hill ; 
but alas ! the sparrow-hawk has a good memory, 
and where he has killed one day, he will come the 
next. Thus it happened that on the second evening 
only two answered the mother's signal the White 
Rabbit and a brown brother. 
On the third day Brownie took them down the 
field. It was dangerous, for the hedge was full of 
enemies, but she dared not risk the hawk again. 
Even the peeps from the hill had not prepared the 
little ones for anything so immense as the world 
into which they came, blue sky overhead and grass 
a perfect forest peopled with strange beasts all 
around them. Brownie was ravenous, and the 
young ones, watching her tear off grass blades and 
