quizzical look to the
Lark, whose left eye was beginning to
droop, as he stood, with one leg up, in
the significant fashion our woodland
friends indulge in when they indicate
that they are tired. "We shall leave
to you, Bird of the night"--were his last
words, as he addressed the Nightingale--"we
shall leave to you the first
interview with this little sparkling
thing from fairyland, or whatever other
land it has quitted. We shall defer
_our_ visit till to-morrow."

So away the two brown-winged companions
sped, I know not exactly where.
But, though both in a great hurry to get
home, they judiciously deemed, as I
have just observed, that they might
do a trifle of purveying business on
the way, by picking up a few seeds; or
if a manageable slug or grub presented
itself, so much the better. I had not
the curiosity to follow them; but I
believe they each contrived to carry
home a dainty supper; the one to the
hole of a big ash-tree, the other to its
nest in the furrow beside some tufts of
golden gorse. It may be interesting,
however, to know, by way of completing
their domestic history, that both had
promising young households--the one
of three, and the other of four--to
support; and the wee downy children
had arrived too at a very ravenous age,
with any capacity for food, which
indeed amounted, at times, on the part
alike of father and mother, to a trial of
temper.

The Nightingale, now left all alone
for the discharge of a somewhat novel
duty, seemed at first to feel his
responsibility: perhaps a feeling allied
to nervousness in the human being.
But he was a knowing little fellow too;
and resolved to proceed in the most
alluring as well as discreet way to his
task. Being fully acquainted with the
position of the rose-leaf, he took wing,
and settled himself on the branch of a
birch close by. Without any possible
warning, he forthwith began (it was the
best way of getting over these nervous
sensations) to pipe one of his very best
and most enchanting songs. He had
somewhat unwarrantably indulged the
expectation that he would get an
immediate response from the Dewdrop.
He had however, in this, to exercise
the virtue of patience.

[Illustration]

"Answer me, pretty Dewdrop," he
said in his most bewitching trill.

But the Dewdrop was silent. It
appeared to pay not the slightest
attention.

Another chirrup and mellifluous
note, and then, coming to a lower and
still nearer spray of the birch-t