've taken your part, and will teach you good
manners."

And so saying, she bit off the singing bird's head, and he lay dead on
the ground.

"Now, what's the meaning of this?" she said, "could he not bear even
that? Then certainly he was not made for this world. I've been like a
mother to him I know that, for I've a good heart."

Then the neighbour's cock stuck his head into the yard, and crowed
with steam-engine power.

"You'll kill me with your crowing!" she cried. "It's all your fault.
He's lost his head, and I am very near losing mine."

"There's not much lying where he fell!" observed the cock.

"Speak of him with respect," retorted the Portuguese duck, "for he had
song, manners, and education. He was affectionate and soft, and that's
as good in animals, as in your so-called human beings."

And all the ducks came crowding round the little dead singing bird.
Ducks have strong passions, whether they feel envy or pity; and as
there was nothing here to envy, pity manifested itself, even in the
two Chinese.

"We shall never get such a singing bird again; he was almost a
Chinese," they whispered, and they wept with a mighty clucking sound,
and all the fowls clucked too; but the ducks went about with the
redder eyes.

"We've hearts of our own," they said; "nobody can deny that."

"Hearts!" repeated the Portuguese, "yes, that we have, almost as much
as in Portugal."

"Let us think of getting something to satisfy our hunger," said the
drake, "for that's the most important point. If one of our toys is
broken, why, we have plenty more!"

THE GIRL WHO TROD ON THE LOAF.

The story of the girl who trod on the loaf, to avoid soiling her
shoes, and of the misfortunes that befell this girl, is well known. It
has been written, and even printed.

The girl's name was Inge; she was a poor child, but proud and
presumptuous; there was a bad foundation in her, as the saying is.
When she was quite a little child, it was her delight to catch flies,
and tear off their wings, so as to convert them into creeping things.
Grown older, she would take cockchafers and beetles, and spit them on
pins. Then she pushed a green leaf or a little scrap of paper towards
their feet, and the poor creatures seized it, and held it fast, and
turned it over and over, struggling to get free from the pin.

"The cockchafer is reading," Inge would say. "See how he turns the
leaf round and round!"

With years she grew worse rather than be