By Elanora Kinsley Marble.

The next day Mrs. Jenny retired into the tin pot, and later, when Mr. Wren peeped in, lo! an egg, all spotted with red and brown, lay upon the soft lining of the nest.

“It’s quite the prettiest thing in the world,” proudly said Mr. Wren. “Why, my dear, I don’t believe your cousin, Mrs. John Wren, ever laid one like it. It seems to me those spots upon the shell are very remarkable. I shouldn’t be surprised if the bird hatched from that shell will make a name for himself in bird-land some day, I really shouldn’t.”

“You foolish fellow,” laughed Mrs. Wren, playfully pecking him with her bill, “if you were a Goose your Goslings, in your eyes, would all be Swans. That’s what I heard our landlady say to her husband last night, out on the porch, when he wondered which one of his boys would be president of the United States.”

Mr. Wren chuckled in a truly papa-like manner and pecked her bill in return, then fairly bubbling over with happiness flew to a neighboring limb, and burst into such a merry roundelay, one note tumbling over another in Wren fashion, that every member of the household came out to hear and see.

“There he is,” cried Pierre, as Mrs. Wren left her nest and flew over beside him, “with tail down and head up, singing as though he were mad with joy.”

“Such a rapturous song,” said mamma. “It reminds me of two almost forgotten lines:

‘Brown Wren, from out whose swelling throat
Unstinted joys of music float.’

“How well we are repaid for the litter they made, are we not?”

“And sure, mum,” said Bridget, whose big heart had also been touched by the sweet song, “it’s glad I am, for sure, that I wasn’t afther dispossessin’ your tinents. It’s innocent craythurs they be, God bless ’em, a harmin’ ov no wan. Sthill—”

“Well,” queried her mistress, as Bridget paused.

“Sthill, mum, I do be afther wonderin’ if the tin pot had been a hangin’ under the front porch instead of the back, would ye’s been after takin’ the litter so philosophyky like as ye have, mum, to be sure.”

The mistress looked at Bridget and laughingly shook her head.

“That’s a pretty hard nut to crack, Bridget,” said she. “Under those conditions I am afraid I——” What ever admission she was going to make was cut short by a burst of laughter from the children.

“Look at him, mamma, just look at him,” they cried, pointing to Mr. Wren, who, too happy to keep still had flown to the gable at the extremity of the ridge-pole of the house, and after a gush of song, to express his happiness was jerking himself along the ridge-pole in a truly funny fashion. From thence he flew into the lower branches of a neighboring tree, singing and chattering, and whisking himself in and out of the foliage: then back to the roof again, and from roof to tree.

“I know what makes him so happy,” announced Henry, who, standing upon a chair, had peeped into the nest. “There’s a dear little egg in here. Hurrah for Mrs. Wren!”

“Do not touch it,” commanded mamma, “but each one of us will take a peep in turn.”

Mrs. Wren’s bead-like eyes had taken in the whole proceeding, and with fluttering wings she stood on a shrub level with the porch and gave voice to her motherly anxiety and anger.

“Dee, dee, dee,” she shrilly cried, fluttering her little wings, which in bird language means, “oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do?”

Her cries of distress were heard by Mr. Wren, and with all haste he flew down beside her.

“What is it?” cried he, very nearly out of breath from his late exertions. “Has that rascally Mr. Jay——”

“No, no!” she interrupted, wringing her sharp little toes, “It’s not Mr. Jay this time, Mr. Wren. It’s the family over there, our family, robbing our nest of its one little egg.”

“Pooh! nonsense!” coolly said Mr. Wren, taking one long breath of relief. “Why, my dear, you nearly frighten me to death. You know, or ought to know by this time, that our landlord’s family have been taught not to do such things. Besides you yourself admit them to be exceptionally good children and good children never rob nests. Fie, I’m ashamed of you. Really my heart flew to my bill when I heard your call of distress.”

Mrs. Wren, whose fears were quite allayed by this time, looked at her mate scornfully.

“Oh!” said she, with fine sarcasm, “your heart flew into your bill did it? Well, let me say, Mr. Wren, that if it had been my mother in distress, father at the first note of warning, would have flown to her assistance with his heart in his claws. He kept them well sharpened for just such occasions, and woe to any enemy he found prowling about his premises.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Mr. Wren, “I presume he would have attacked Bridget over there, and the whole family. To hear you talk, Mrs. Wren, one would think your father was a whole host in himself.”

“And so he was,” said she, loftily, “I have seen him attack a Bluebird and a Martin at the same time and put them both to flight. An Owl had no terrors for him, and as for squirrels, why——” Mrs. Wren raised her wings and shrugged her shoulders in a very Frenchy and wholly contemptuous manner.

“I’m a peace-loving sort of a fellow, that you know, Mrs. Wren, deploring the reputation our tribe has so justly earned for fighting, and scolding, and jeering at everything and everybody. Indeed they go so far as to say we trust no one, not even our kindred. But mark me, Mrs. Wren, mark me, I say! Should any rascally Jay, neighbor or not, ever dare approach that tin pot over yonder, or ever alight on the roof of the porch, I’ll, I’ll——” Mr. Wren fairly snorted in his anger, and standing on one foot, doubled up the toes of the other and struck it defiantly at the imaginary foe.

“Oh, I dare say!” tauntingly said Mrs. Wren, “you are the sort of fellow that I heard little Dorothy reading about the other day. You would fight and run away, Mr. Wren, that you might live to fight another day.”

Mr. Wren lifted one foot and scratched himself meditatively behind the ear.

“Good, very good, indeed, my dear! It must have been a pretty wise chap that wrote that.” And Mr. Wren, who seemed to find the idea very amusing, laughed until the tears stood in his eyes.

Mrs. Wren smoothed her ruffled feathers and smiled too.

“Tut, tut, Jenny,” said the good-natured fellow, “what is the use of us newly married folk quarreling in this fashion. Think how joyous we were less than one short hour ago. Come, my dear, the family have all left the porch, save Emmett. Let us fly over there and take a look at our treasure.” And Mrs. Wren, entirely restored to good humor, flirted her tail over her back, hopped about a little in a coquettish manner, then spread her wings, and off they flew together.

Mrs. Wren the next day deposited another egg, and the next, and the next, till six little speckled beauties lay huddled together in the cosy nest.

“Exactly the number of our landlord’s family,” said she, fluffing her feathers and gathering the eggs under her in that truly delightful fashion common to all mother birds. “I am so glad. I was greatly puzzled to know what names we should have given the babies had there been more than six.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Mr. Wren, who in his joy had been treating his mate to one of his fine wooing songs, and at length coaxed her from the nest, “but I dare say we would have named them after some of our relatives.”

“Why, of course,” assented Mrs. Wren, “I certainly would have named one after my dear, brave papa. Mrs. John Wren says that boys named after a great personage generally develop all the qualities of that person.”

“Oh, indeed!” sniffed Mr. Wren, “that was the reason she named one of her numerous brood last year after our rascally neighbor, Mr. Jay, I presume. Certainly the youngster turned out as great a rascal as the one he was named after.”

Mrs. Wren’s head feathers stood on end at once.

“For the life of me,” she said tartly, “I cannot see why you always fly into a passion, Mr. Wren, whenever I mention dear papa, or Mrs. John, or in fact any of my relatives. Indeed—but sh-sh! There’s one of our neighbors coming this way. I verily believe it is, oh yes, it is, it is——” and Mrs. Wren wrung her toes, and cried cheet, cheet, cheet, and dee, dee, dee! in a truly anxious and alarming manner.

[to be continued.]