ite impossible for
the sparrow to get into the nest: she was so sadly used that she could
not even say "Chirrup," still less, "Why, I am your own mother!" The
other birds, too, now set upon the sparrow, and plucked out feather
after feather; so that at last she fell bleeding in the rose-bush
below.

"Oh! poor thing!" said all the roses, "be quieted; we will hide you.
Lean your little head on us."

The sparrow spread out her wings once more, then folded them close to
her body, and lay dead in the midst of the family who were her
neighbors,--the beautiful fresh roses.

"Chirp! chirp!" sounded from the nest. "Where can our mother be? It is
quite inconceivable! It cannot surely be a trick of hers by which she
means to tell us that we are now to provide for ourselves? She has
left us the house as an inheritance; but to which of us is it
exclusively to belong, when we ourselves have families'?"

"Yes, that will never do that you stay here with me when my household
is increased by the addition of a wife and children," said the
smallest.

"I shall have, I should think, more wives and children than you," said
the second.

"But I am the eldest," said the third. They all now grew passionate;
they beat each other with their wings, pecked with their beaks, when,
plump! one after the other was tumbled out of the nest. There they lay
with their rage; they turned their heads on one side, and winked their
eyes as they looked upward: that was their way of playing the
simpleton. They could fly a little, and by practice they learned to do
so still better; and they finally were unanimous as to a sign by
which, when at some future time they should meet again in the world,
they might recognise each other. It was to consist in a "Chirrup!" and
in a thrice-repeated scratching on the ground with the left leg.

The young sparrow that had been left behind in the nest spread himself
out to his full size. He was now, you know, a householder; but his
grandeur did not last long: in the night red fire broke through the
windows, the flames seized on the roof, the dry thatch blazed up high,
the whole house was burnt, and the young sparrow with it; but the
young married couple escaped, fortunately, with life. When the sun
rose again, and every thing looked so refreshed and invigorated, as
after a peaceful sleep, there was nothing left of the cottage except
some charred black beams leaning against the chimney, which now was
its own master. A grea