"No; but one night after tea, when Auntie and Susie and I were playing
at choosing birds,--telling which bird we liked best and why, you
know,--papa came along and said: 'I choose the chirping sparrow for my
bird'; and when we laughed at him and called for his reasons (because
chippies are such insignificant things, you know, and no singers), he
told us he liked them because they were tame and friendly, and because
they built such neat, pretty nests; and he pulled an old nest he had
saved in pieces, and showed us how it was put together."

"Yes," said Susie; "and the other reason he gave for liking them best
was, that they got up early and rang the rising-bell for all the other
birds. That was such a funny reason for papa to give, for we all know he
dearly loves his morning nap."

"Really, now, do the chippies get up first in the morning?" said
Florence.

"With the first peep of day," Miss Ruth answered. "This morning I heard
their cheerful twitter before a ray of light had penetrated to my room;
and a welcome sound it was, for it told me the long night was over. One
dear little fellow sang two or three strains before he succeeded in
waking any body; then a robin joined in, in a sleepy kind of way; then
two or three wrens, and then a cat-bird; and, last of all, my little
weather-bird, which, from the topmost branches of the elm-tree, warbled
out to me that it was a pleasant day. Oh, what a sweet concert they all
gave me before the sun rose!"

"I never heard of a weather-bird, Aunt Ruth."

"Your Uncle Charlie gave him that name, Susie, when we were children.
His true name is Warbling Verio; but we used to fancy the little fellow
announced what kind of day it would be. If clear he called out:
'Pleasant day!' three times over, with a pause between each sentence and
a long-drawn-out Yes at the close; or, if it rained, he said 'Rainy day'
or 'Windy day,' describing the weather, whatever it might be, always
with an emphatic _Yes_.

"One day he talked to me, but it was not about the weather. Things had
gone wrong with me all the morning. I had spoken disrespectfully to my
grandmother, and had been so cross and impatient with baby Walter that
mother had taken him from me, though she could ill spare the time to
tend him. Then I ran through the garden to a little patch of woods
behind the house, and sat on an old log, in a very bad humor.

"Presently, high above my head in the branches of the walnut-tree, the
weather-bird