good-bye to you. You are a charming woman and you know how to adapt
yourself to circumstances. You were incensed at the horrid robbers in
the pond; and you yourself ate innocent flies from morning till night.
You loved poetry; but you ate the poor May-fly, though you promised her
that she should be allowed to live her poetic life for an hour. You
were furious with the spider who ate her mother, and with the cray-fish,
who ate her children; and now, of your own accord you have pecked your
sick child to death, so that you may go to Italy."

"Thank goodness, I sha'n't see you any more, you detestable, spiteful
fellow!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "But I may as well tell you that I
killed my child for pity."

"And the spider ate her mother from hunger and the cray-fish her
children from love," said the eel. "And I let mine shift for themselves
from common sense!"

"My dears," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, "that eel was positively created to
live in this horrible pond!"

Then they flew away.

"I don't think I shall stay here, for all that," said the eel. "I am
longing for the sea."

He looked round warily, then crept up into the grass and wriggled and
twisted quickly to the nearest ditch.

CHAPTER XII

The End

[Illustration]

November came and was no different from what it usually is.

The trees stood with bare branches. The leaves rustled over the earth or
floated on the pond. The reeds were all cut down; the water-lily's
leaves withered away, with stalks and all, while she, deep down at the
bottom, slept her winter sleep and dreamt of her next white spring
costume.

And down at the bottom lay all the frogs, buried deep in the mud, so
that only their noses stuck out. It looked as though the pond were paved
with frogs' noses. The plants in the water were as leafless as the
plants on land. Hidden among the stalks and withered leaves, under the
stones and in the mud lay animals sleeping, or eggs waiting for the
spring to come and hatch them.

[Illustration]

All the birds had flown, except the chaffinch and a few others, who
hopped about and managed as best they could. The flies were all gone and
the dragon-flies and spiders and midges and butterflies and all the
rest. There were only a few grumpy fish left in the pond.

And the storm raged among the trees, till they cracked and creaked, and
whipped the pond up into tall waves with foam on their crests.

[Illustration]

"It is really horrid here in win