ll knew it; but people often know the right thing, and do
the wrong. They knew also that "one wears out one's welcome when one
stays too long in another man's house;" but they remained there for
all that. Meat and mead are good things. All went on merrily, and
towards night the slaves slept amidst the warm ashes, and dipped their
fingers into the fat skimmings of the soup, and licked them. It was a
rare time!

And again the Viking went forth on an expedition, notwithstanding the
stormy weather. He went after the crops were gathered in. He went with
his men to the coast of Britain--"it was only across the water," he
said--and his wife remained at home with her little girl; and it was
soon to be seen that the foster-mother cared almost more for the poor
frog, with the honest eyes and plaintive croaking, than for the beauty
who scratched and bit everybody around.

The raw, damp, autumn, mist, that loosens the leaves from the trees,
lay over wood and hedge; "Birdfeatherless," as the snow is called, was
falling thickly; winter was close at hand. The sparrows seized upon
the storks' nest, and talked over, in their fashion, the absent
owners. They themselves, the stork pair, with all their young ones,
where were they now?

* * * * *

The storks were now in the land of Egypt, where the sun was shining
warmly as with us on a lovely summer day. The tamarind and the acacia
grew there; the moonbeams streamed over the temples of Mahomet. On the
slender minarets sat many a pair of storks, reposing after their long
journey; the whole immense flock had fixed themselves, nest by nest,
amidst the mighty pillars and broken porticos of temples and forgotten
edifices. The date tree elevated to a great height its broad leafy
roof, as if it wished to form a shelter from the sun. The grey
pyramids stood with their outlines sharply defined in the clear air
towards the desert, where the ostrich knew he could use his legs; and
the lion sat with his large grave eyes, and gazed on the marble
sphinxes that lay half imbedded in the sand. The waters of the Nile
had receded, and a great part of the bed of the river was swarming
with frogs; and that, to the stork family, was the pleasantest sight
in the country where they had arrived. The young ones were astonished
at all they saw.

"Such are the sights here, and thus it always is in our warm country,"
said the stork-mother good-humouredly.

"Is there yet more to b