ll, paid
no attention to it. Very soon he flew after the sparrows, and she lost
sight of him. Not a mouthful of breakfast could the poor child eat.

"'I shall never see my poor little Tufty again, mamma!' she said. 'I saw
him flying straight for the swamp, and he never can find his way back!'
and she cried as if her heart would break.

"In the middle of the forenoon her brother Jack called to her from the
foot of the stairs:--

"'What will you give me, Kittie,' he said, 'if I will tell you where
Tufty is?'

"'O Jack! do you know? Have you seen him? Where? where?' cried the
little girl, coming downstairs in a great hurry.

"'Be quiet!' said Jack. 'Now, don't get excited; your bird is all right,
though I'm sorry to say he's in rather low company,' And he led her to
the dining-room window that looked into the garden, and there, sure
enough, was Tufty on a lilac-bush. Brownie was there too. She was
hopping about and talking in a most earnest and excited manner. It was
easy to see that she was using all her powers of persuasion to coax
Tufty not to go back to his old home, but to help her build a little
house out-of-doors, where they could set up housekeeping together.

"Kittie knew just what to do. She ran for the cage and for a sprig of
dried pepper-grass (of all the good things she gave her bird to eat, he
liked pepper-grass best), and, standing in the open door-way, called:
'Tufty! Tufty!' He gave a start, a little flutter of his wings, and
then, with one glad cry of recognition, and without so much as a parting
look at poor Brownie, flew straight for the door, and alighted on the
top of his cage.

"'How strangely things come about, mamma?' Kittie said that evening as
they talked over this little incident. 'Jack has laughed at me all
winter for feeding the sparrows, and called them hateful, quarrelsome
things, and said I should get nicely paid next summer when they drove
away all the pretty song-birds that come about the house. And now, don't
you see, mamma, one of the sparrows I have fed all winter--I knew her
right away by a funny little dent in her breast--has done me such good
service? Why, I am paid a hundred thousand times over for all I have
ever done for the sparrows.'"

"And what became of poor Brownie?" Nellie asked. "I almost hoped Tufty
would stay out with her, she was such a good little sparrow."

"She lingered about the garden for a while, making a plaintive little
noise; but when the family of B