e fallen asleep of the silence over his breviary.

Fortunately, their return was prompt; a sparrow led the way, a jay
followed, and then the whole swarm was back at work. And the abbe could
walk up and down, close his book or open it, and murmur: "They'll not
leave me a berry this year!"

It made no difference; not a bird left his prey, any more than if the good
abbe had been a cone-shaped pear-tree, with thick leaves, balancing
himself on the gravel of the walk.

The birds know that those who complain take no action. Every year they
built their nests around the parsonage of St. Philemon in greater numbers
than anywhere else. The best places were quickly taken, the hollows in the
trees, the holes in the walls, the forks of the apple-trees and the elms,
and you could see a brown beak, like the point of a sword, sticking out of
a wisp of straw between all the rafters of the roof. One year, when all
the places were taken, I suppose, a tomtit, in her embarrassment, spied
the slit of the letter-box protected by its little roof, at the right of
the parsonage gate. She slipped in, was satisfied with the result of her
explorations, and brought the materials to build a nest. There was nothing
she neglected that would make it warm, neither the feathers, nor the
horsehair, nor the wool, nor even the scales of lichens that cover old
wood.

One morning the housekeeper came in perfectly furious, carrying a paper.
She had found it under the laurel bush, at the foot of the garden.

"Look, sir, a paper, and dirty, too! They are up to fine doings!"

"Who, Philomene?"

"Your miserable birds; all the birds that you let stay here! Pretty soon
they'll be building their nests in your soup-tureens!"

"I haven't but one."

"Haven't they got the idea of laying their eggs in your letter-box! I
opened it because the postman rang and that doesn't happen every day. It
was full of straw and horsehair and spiders' webs, with enough feathers to
make a quilt, and, in the midst of all that, a beast that I didn't see
hissed at me like a viper!"

The abbe of St. Philemon began to laugh like a grandfather when he hears
of a baby's pranks.

"That must be a tomtit," said he, "they are the only birds clever enough
to think of it. Be careful not to touch it, Philomene."

"No fear of that; it is not nice enough!"

The abbe went hastily through the garden, the house, the court planted
with asparagus, till he came to the wall which separated the par