“So it is—­so it is!” beginning with a twitter, answered the canary; “but they said I talked too much!”—­ending with a trill.

“Talked!” repeated the mouse, sitting up on her hind-legs and looking earnestly at him.  “I thought you only sang!”

“Well, singing and talking mean about the same thing in bird-language,” said the canary.  “But goodness g-r-r-racious!” he went on, swinging rapidly to and fro in his little swing at the top of his cage, “’t was they that talked so much—­my mistress and the doctor’s wife, and the doctor’s sister—­not me.  I said scarcely a word, and yet I am called a chatterbox, and punished—­before company, too!  I feel mad enough to pull out my yellowest feathers, or upset my bath-tub.  Now, you look like a sensible little thing, mouse, and I’ll tell you all about it—­what they said and what I said—­and you shall judge if I deserved to be banished.

“The doctor’s wife and the doctor’s sister called.

“‘It’s a lovely day!’ said they.

“‘A lovely, lovely, lovely day!’ sang I.  ’The sun shines bright—­the sky is blue—­the grass is green—­yes, lovely, lovely, lovely—­and I’m happy, happy, happy, and glad, glad, glad!’

“They went right on talking, though I sang my very best, without paying the slightest attention to me; and when I stopped, I caught the words ‘So sweet’ from my mistress, and then I sang again:  ’Sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet is the clover—­sweet is the rose—­sweet the song of the bird—­sweet the bird—­sweet the clover—­sweet the rose—­the rose—­the clover—­the bird—­yes, yes, yes—­sweet, sweet, sweet!’ And as I paused to take breath, I heard some one say, ‘What a noise that bird makes! how loudly he sings!’ ’How loudly he sings!’ repeated I, ’how loudly he sings!—­the bird, the bird, the beautiful bird—­sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet——­’ But suddenly my song ended, for my mistress got up, unhooked my cage, saying, ‘Canary, you’re a chatterbox; you talk too much,’ and brought me in here.

“And really, mouse, as you must see, I didn’t say more than a dozen or so words.  What do you think about it?”

“Well,” said the mouse, stroking her whiskers and speaking slowly, “you didn’t say much, but it strikes me you talked a great deal.”

“Oh!” said the canary, putting his head on one side and looking thoughtfully at her out of his right, bright, black, round eye.  But just then the mouse heard an approaching footstep, and, without even saying “good-bye,” she hurried away to the hole behind the book-case.

A NIGHT WITH A BEAR.

BY JANE G. AUSTIN.

“Tell you what, Roxie, I wish father and Jake had some of those hot nut-cakes for their dinner; they didn’t carry much of anything, and these are proper nice.”

Mrs. Beamish set her left hand upon her hip, leaned against the corner of the dresser, and meditatively selected another nut-cake, dough-nut or cruller, as you may call them, from the great brown pan piled up with these dainties, and Roxie, who was curled up in a little heap on the corner of the settle, knitting a blue woolen stocking, looked brightly up and said: