e bird and spread the hay
quilt over him.

'Perhaps you were one of the swallows who sang to me in the summer,'
said she. 'I wish I could have brought you to life again; but now,
good-bye!' And she laid her face, wet with tears, on the breast of the
bird. Surely she felt a faint movement against her cheek? Yes, there
it was again! Suppose the bird was not dead after all, but only
senseless with cold and hunger! And at this thought Maia hastened back
to the house, and brought some grains of corn, and a drop of water in
a leaf. This she held close to the swallow's beak, which he opened
unconsciously, and when he had sipped the water she gave him the
grains one by one.

'Make no noise, so that no one may guess you are not dead,' she said.
'To-night I will bring you some more food, and I will tell the mole
that he must stuff up the hole again, as it makes the passage too cold
for me to walk in. And now farewell.' And off she went, back to the
field-mouse, who was sound asleep.

* * * * *

After some days of Maia's careful nursing, the swallow felt strong
enough to talk, and he told Maia how he came to be in the place where
she found him. Before he was big enough to fly very high he had torn
his wing in a rosebush, so that he could not keep up with his family
and friends when they took their departure to warmer lands. In their
swift course they never noticed that their little brother was not with
them, and at last he dropped on the ground from sheer fatigue, and
must have rolled down the hole into the passage.

It was very lucky for the swallow that both the mole and the
field-mouse thought he was dead, and did not trouble about him, so
that when the spring _really_ came, and the sun was hot, and blue
hyacinths grew in the woods and primroses in the hedges, he was as
tall and strong as any of his companions.

'You have saved my life, dear little Maia,' said he; 'but now the time
has come for me to leave you--unless,' he added, 'you will let me
carry you on my back far away from this gloomy prison.'

Maia's eyes sparkled at the thought, but she shook her head bravely.

'Yes, you must go; but I must stay behind,' she answered. 'The
field-mouse has been good to me, and I cannot desert her like that. Do
you think you can open the hole for yourself?' she asked anxiously.
'If so, you had better begin now, for this evening we are to have
supper with the mole, and it would never do for my fos