lina could not sleep that night;
so she got out of bed, and plaited a great big blanket of straw, and
carried it off, and spread it over the dead bird, and piled upon
it thistle-down as soft as cotton-wool, which she had found in the
field-mouse's room, so that the poor little thing should lie warmly
buried.

'Farewell, pretty little bird!' she said. 'Farewell, and thank you for
your beautiful songs in the summer, when the trees were green, and the
sun shone down warmly on us!' Then she laid her head against the bird's
heart. But the bird was not dead: he had been frozen, but now that she
had warmed him, he was coming to life again.

In autumn the swallows fly away to foreign lands; but there are some who
are late in starting, and then they get so cold that they drop down as
if dead, and the snow comes and covers them over.

Thumbelina trembled, she was so frightened; for the bird was very large
in comparison with herself--only an inch high. But she took courage,
piled up the down more closely over the poor swallow, fetched her own
coverlid and laid it over his head.

Next night she crept out again to him. There he was alive, but very
weak; he could only open his eyes for a moment and look at Thumbelina,
who was standing in front of him with a piece of rotten wood in her
hand, for she had no other lantern.

'Thank you, pretty little child!' said the swallow to her. 'I am so
beautifully warm! Soon I shall regain my strength, and then I shall be
able to fly out again into the warm sunshine.'

'Oh!' she said, 'it is very cold outside; it is snowing and freezing!
stay in your warm bed; I will take care of you!'

Then she brought him water in a petal, which he drank, after which he
related to her how he had torn one of his wings on a bramble, so that he
could not fly as fast as the other swallows, who had flown far away
to warmer lands. So at last he had dropped down exhausted, and then he
could remember no more. The whole winter he remained down there, and
Thumbelina looked after him and nursed him tenderly. Neither the mole
nor the field-mouse learnt anything of this, for they could not bear the
poor swallow.

When the spring came, and the sun warmed the earth again, the swallow
said farewell to Thumbelina, who opened the hole in the roof for him
which the mole had made. The sun shone brightly down upon her, and the
swallow asked her if she would go with him; she could sit upon his back.
Thumbelina wanted very mu