r other
pretty eye should be.

But one day there was great excitement among the birds. Miss Jenny Wren
was going to be married to young Cock Robin. There was to be a grand
wedding; every one was invited, and of course the Nightingale was needed
to lead the bridal chorus of feathered songsters. But the poor
Nightingale was set in a flutter of anxiety by the news.

"Oh, dear me!" she said, "I do want to go to Jenny's wedding, oh, of
course I do! But how can I go? If I do, the other birds will discover
that I have but one eye, and then how the disagreeable creatures will
laugh at me. Oh dear, oh dear! What shall I do? I cannot go, no, I
really cannot. But what excuse can I give? Oh, it is not right that the
sweetest singer in all Birdland should be laughed at, merely because she
has the misfortune to lack one poor little eye!"

The Nightingale sat on the branch, singing so mournfully that all the
creatures on the ground below went sorrowfully about their daily
business. Just then the Nightingale spied a silvery gleam among the dead
leaves. It was the Blindworm, a spotted gray streak, writhing
noiselessly along towards the decayed wood of a fallen tree, in which he
loved to burrow. And the Blindworm was not sad like the others, neither
seemed he to care in the least about the Nightingale's music. Worms
think little of sweet sounds. He cocked his one eye up towards the
Nightingale and winked maliciously. He alone of all creatures knew the
Nightingale's secret.

"Good-day, Sister Nightingale," he said. "How is your eye this morning?
We have a goodly pair between us; though I think that mine is rather the
better of the two."

Then he disappeared into a tiny opening. For though the Blindworm is
nearly a foot long he is so smooth and slippery that he can enter a hole
which is almost smaller than himself.

The Nightingale was very indignant at being addressed in this familiar
way by a miserable, crawling creature who not only could not fly, but
who could not sing a note, and did not know _do_ from _fa_.
Besides, it made her angry to think that he knew her secret and talked
aloud about it so that any one might hear.

"The idea!" she cried. "It is bad enough that I cannot go to the wedding
of my dear friend Jenny. But to be jeered at by this creature, it is
more than I can bear. Ha! I have an idea. I will punish him and help
myself at the same time. I will steal his one eye and wear it to Jenny
Wren's wedding; then no one