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Think of a toad in a fairy's cradle! But we must away, or we should become obnoxious also. What claim had we to linger near her? No, we must away! her little heart was, no doubt, anxiously throbbing, lest her faith in our generosity was thrown away! Her bright eye filling with tremulous light some dim shade, while she watched for our departure. Her ear was bending earthward to catch the last sounds our heavy feet should make. We must away! We must tread daintily, for fear the clangor of our gigantic stride and footfall should scare away the wee fairy.

The tenth day from that we determined should be the time for our next visit. By that time, we thought, we shall have made up our minds to be very cruel-we knew that if we shrank, if our hearts grew tender, we should never even get a peep at that little fairy woman's treasures, much less be able to possess one or more of them.

Accordingly, each day we talked about what we meant to do; how we should manage--at what hour our visit was to be made, and so on. The tenth day arrived. The afternoon was clear and warm. But Mr. W. was in no hurry. The sun went slowly down; the shadows grew longer and darker; presently the blue haze in the distance became gray and purple and red, as the sun went below the horizon-and now all the shadows spread themselves over the broad bosom of the earth, mantling it like a vail, drawn over the aged neck of some century-old grand-dame.

A minute or two all was silent-and then, as long white lines of moonlight penetrated the forest, rose the mingled chirp of field-crickets, tree-frogs, and cicada. Then we sallied forth. Slowly we traced our way across the farm. Softly we stepped-lowly we whispered. Here we halted-in the hollow, where the elders grow by the fence.

Mr. W. carefully selects a long slender stem, and, testing its elasticity and strength, asked for my green vail. This I had in my basket, and gave it to him, and watched with connoisseuring air while he adjusted it at the point of the stick. Then we both tried what could be done with it for our purpose.

Mr. W. with cautious step advanced a little and endeavored to capture a clump of grass, but failed, and then handed the net to me. Softly, slowly I approached a group of field flowers, and lo! I had them safely netted!

"So much for a woman!" said Mr. W. "But you will not have the nerve to do the same thing at the castle of our fairy, I fear."

I shook my head in the negative. I was quite sure of that; besides, my eyes were not so well able to penetrate the shadows, and I felt sure that our scheme would fail if I attempted to "net a fairy" in the dark. However, after a few trials, Mr. W. became perfect in throwing the net.

Arrived in the woods, we took a short cut across to the brow of the hill, some sixty steps from the door of madame the fairy's castle. Here we halted. Mr. W. laid down his powder-flask and

shot-bag, gave me his gun--gave me his hat, which I laid on the ground with my shawl and basket. Then removing his shoes from his feet, and taking the elder pole with the green vail net at the end of it, with a gesture to me which signified, "keep silent," he retreated up the wood-path.

In the mean time, the shadows had gathered blackness, until within the wood where we were, the trees stood solemnly in the stillness, lighted only at distant intervals by the cold, white rays of moonlight which straggled through, blinking and hesitating. Far over head, with a fierce red glare, one star was visible through the branches.

All was still. I had quietly seated myself upon the ground, bending forward to watch the retreating dim figure of Mr. W., who was now scarcely visible in the distance and darkness. In a moment more his form was hidden from my view entirely by an intervening trunk.

I listened! Not a sound could I hear. A minute passed! Suddenly, in a clear whisper, I heard my name called. I sprang forward, and glided with instinctive quiet into the shadows through which he had disappeared. I met him in a moment returning toward me, and could see through the falling glimmerings of the moonlight through the leaves that he carried something with the jealous care with which a treasure-seeker would bear the strange secret which he had found.

I whispered "What! what have you done? Did you catch her? Did

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Well, what have you here? what have you here?"

"Oh, step into the moonlight and see! The fairy would flit, and I have not her, at least. Oh, I feel sad that we must do such things! She went away like the flit of a moonbeam-so still, so soft, so gliding! I thought I could see her gentle eyes through all the shadows, looking with meek reproach, as if to say: O savage monster! how came you here to rob me of my treasure?"

And then, as we stepped into the opening of the road, and the broad moon came down in a pale, white sheet of silver, I saw he held in his hand a quaintly shaped nest, such as I had never seen before, covered with brown leaves, and arched over like some fairy grotto, lined with delicate and moss-like roots, and the soft fibres of thin barks. I peered into this strange nest, andO wonder! what think you ?—the fairy pearls had changed to little callow birds! I said, "Why could you take them-are they not too young?"

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For they are so acute in hiding their dainty domicils, and frequent such still and shadowy places, with such dreamy, gliding movement, that they are almost impalpable actualities to naturalists."

It is an event to find the nest of the Ground Thrush; you might tramp on one a thousand times without knowing it in your heavy stalkings through the sere leaves of forests, without ever seeing or recognizing her-the mother-and with a perfect ignorance of her existence; unless you happened to be cognizant of the fact, that when a weary, lost, and sweating wanderer, you sat down upon a stump or fallen tree, in the heavy forest, with every thing like thickets and shadow about you, you heard a low and sweet, soft song that did not aspire in its notes to be heard among the treetops, but which was only meant, like the cricket's chirrup by the hearth, to be heard as an undertone to inspire even the underbrush of nature with a plaining harmony.

O! how do we overlook so many of these quaint and musical things! Is the world always to be sonorous with the screams of eagles from its cliffs and tree-tops? Is mankind always to be overborne by cruel strength? Are we always to forget that there is an undertone of nature, and that its most mysterious music is, will be, and has been, always spoken in its "underbrush," where fairy people most frequent?

We took the little gaping, dim-eyed birdlings home with us, and gave them a house in a basket, tucked in with warm, soft silks and woolens, their

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cradle; and they soon became very intimate with "Mother Brush," and also with our three pet wrens, 'Bob," "Mouse," and "Lady"—or, rather, the latter became well acquainted with these babies, after having plunged themselves without ceremony into their nest, dísplacing their little fat bodies, to make warm nestling places at the bottom of the nest for themselves to take naps in. But we have told you about the wrens, and some day we will tell you more about these children of the fairies. At present, all we can say is, that we never saw more ambitious little creatures. They would run out of the nest before their feathers were half grown, every time they saw the "Brush," and such droll-looking scamps as they were -their chief beauty consisting in the fact that their mouths were as beautiful as wild flowers, and their breath fragrant as ripe nuts just fallen from the trees.

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Just at this time we had a great deal so many nests to see to every Over the other side of the brook we had a Red Bird's nest, a Cat Bird's nest, a Yellow Breasted Warbler's nest, an Indigo Bird's nest, besides several others. Up on the hill lived a Blue Bird in a stump, and in the wood, where our fairies lived, were our SongThrushes; in the brier-field, just beyond this wood, lived a Thrasher, who never hesitated to give me a beating when I went too close to her nest. Partridge had a nest in the ground, with an arbor of grass and twigs built over it, under a bush. Sly thing! she diu

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not know that we knew all about her edge of the nest and carefully taken out secret. its contents.

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Then down by the spring, where the Raccoons came of nights, were several other nests. In fact, we had as much as we could attend to, watching the ways and oddities of all this large family.

But our family diminished; by what means we could not for some time imagine. Sometimes we thought the little darkies were keeping watch on all our motions, and were in the habit of following us to steal our birds' nests. At other times we thought that the sheep or hogs destroyed them; but then, if they did interfere, the nests would all be broken down-but no! in almost every instance the nest was merely careened over, and the eggs or young carefully abstracted, leaving no trace besides this.

At length, one day, passing through the brier-field, we were attracted by the cries of a pair of Ground Sparrows. The poor things were flying back and forth, twittering and screaming apparently in great distress. Something was the matter! we stepped hurriedly for ward.

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