nt to build a nest,
and I have got no wife."

"Why don't you look for a wife, then?" said the Fairy, laughing at him.
"Do you expect one to come and look for you? Fly up, and sing a
beautiful song in the sky, and then perhaps some pretty hen will hear
you; and perhaps, if you tell her that you will help her to build a
capital nest, and that you will sing to her all day long, she will
consent to be your wife."

"Oh, I don't like," said the Lark, "I don't like to fly up, I am so
ugly. If I were a goldfinch, and had yellow bars on my wings, or a
robin, and had red feathers on my breast, I should not mind the defect
which now I am afraid to show. But I am only a poor brown Lark, and I
know I shall never get a wife."

"I never heard of such an unreasonable bird," said the Fairy. "You
cannot expect to have everything."

"Oh, but you don't know," proceeded the Lark, "that if I fly up my feet
will be seen; and no other bird has feet like mine. My claws are enough
to frighten any one, they are so long; and yet I assure you, Fairy, I am
not a cruel bird."

"Let me look at your claws," said the Fairy.

So the Lark lifted up one of his feet, which he had kept hidden in the
long grass, lest any one should see it.

"It looks certainly very fierce," said the Fairy. "Your hind claw is at
least an inch long, and all your toes have very dangerous-looking
points. Are, you sure you never use them to fight with?"

"No, never!" said the Lark, earnestly; "I never fought a battle in my
life; but yet these claws grow longer and longer, and I am so ashamed of
their being seen that I very often lie in the grass instead of going up
to sing, as I could wish."

"I think, if I were you, I would pull them off," said the Fairy.

"That is easier said than done," answered the poor Lark. "I have often
got them entangled in the grass, and I scrape them against the hard
clods; but it is of no use, you cannot think how fast they stick."

"Well, I am sorry for you," observed the Fairy; "but at the same time I
cannot but see that, in spite of what you say, you must be a quarrelsome
bird, or you would not have such long spurs."

"That is just what I am always afraid people will say," sighed the Lark.

"For," proceeded the Fairy, "nothing is given us to be of no use. You
would not have wings unless you were to fly, nor a voice unless you were
to sing; and so you would not have those dreadful spurs unless you were
going to fight. If your spurs are