“Yes, and dressed us and salted us!”

“And dressed us and salted us!”

“And dried us!”

“And dried us!”

“And eaten us!”

“And eaten us!”

“How rude!”

“How inconsiderate!”

“How altogether uncalled for!”

“Are you quite sure?” inquired the eldest brother of the little Chinese seabird.

“See,” she replied, “here is the red cord from the queue of one of the boys. I picked it out as his braid dangled against my head!”

The brothers and sisters looked at one another.

“How near they must have come to her!” exclaimed the eldest sister.

“They might have trampled her to death in a very unbecoming manner!” remarked the second.

“They will be sure to do it tonight when they search with torchlight,” was the opinion of the second brother.

And the eldest brother looked sharply down upon the little Chinese seabird, and said:

“If you had not told us what these rude boys intended doing, you would not have had to die alone.”

“I prefer to die alone!” proudly replied the little Chinese seabird. “It will be much pleasanter to die in quiet than with wailing screams in my ears.”

“Hear her, oh, hear her!” exclaimed the second sister.

But the eldest sister, she with the satin-white under-wings and spreading tail, descended to the ground, and began pulling up some tough grass. “Come,” she cried to the other birds, “let us make a strong nest for our broken-winged little sister—a nest in which we can bear away to safety one who tonight has saved our lives without thought of her own.”

“We will, with pleasure,” answered the other birds.

Whereupon they fluttered down and helped to build the most wonderful nest that ever was built, weaving in and out of it the bright red cord, which the little Chinese seabird had plucked out of the boy’s queue. This made the nest strong enough to bear the weight of the little Chinese seabird, and when it was finished they dragged it beside her and tenderly pushed her in. Then they clutched its sides with their beaks, flapped their wings, and in a moment were soaring together far up in the sky, the little Chinese seabird with the broken wing happy as she could be in the midst of them.

WHAT ABOUT THE CAT?

“What about the cat?” asked the little princess of her eldest maid.

“It is sitting on the sunny side of the garden wall, watching the butterflies. It meowed for three of the prettiest to fall into its mouth, and would you believe it, that is just what happened. A green, a blue, a pink shaded with gold, all went down pussy’s red throat.”

The princess smiled. “What about the cat?” she questioned her second maid.

“She is seated in your honorable father’s chair of state, and your honorable father’s first body-slave is scratching her back with your father’s own back-scratcher, made of the purest gold and ivory.”

The princess laughed outright. She pattered gracefully into another room. There she saw the youngest daughter of her foster-mother.