Frank looked very thoughtful for a moment, and Fanny spoke again.

“Just one; you know there are six little ones.”

“I know there are six, Fanny; but you heard how the poor birds cried and scolded, when I only peeped into the nest; and if I took one away, what would they do?”

Fanny thought an instant, and then said: 

“I did not have six mammas, I only had one; and God took my mamma away from me, and I am sure the birds could spare me one little one, when they have six, better than I could spare my mamma, when I only had one.”

Fanny’s reasoning seemed very correct to Frank; he was not old enough to explain the difference to her; so, promising to bring her one of the birds, he left her, and ran back, over the meadows, while Fanny kept on her way home, because she knew her grandmother always expected them earlier on Saturday afternoons.  But though she made haste, it was quite sundown when she reached home.  The snow white cloth was spread upon the table for tea, and Sally was cutting the fresh rye bread, as Fanny entered the room.  Her grandmother sat by the little table, between the windows, and looked up to welcome Fanny, but missing Frank, she asked where he was.

“He has gone back to the woods, grandmother, to get”——­then Fanny hesitated, for she remembered how often she had been told, that it was wicked to rob the bird’s nest, and she had not thought it would be stealing the bird, until now.  She felt ashamed to tell her grandmother, and so she hurried through the room, and went to the closet to hang up her sun bonnet.

Pretty soon she heard the garden gate swing to, and she ran out into the back yard, to meet Frank, who was hurrying along with a sober face, very different from his usual joyous expression.  He held his cap together with both hands, and Fanny’s heart beat hard, when she heard the feeble plaint of the poor imprisoned bird.

“Oh, Frank, I am so sorry,” were the first words that she said, “I did not think that it would be stealing, until I got home, and then I was ashamed to tell grandmother what you had gone back for.  Oh, I am so sorry.”

“And so am I,” said Frank; “it almost made me cry to hear the poor birds fret so.  When I took it away, one of them flow close around my head, and when I ran on to get away from it, I hit my foot against a stone, and stumbled down, and I am afraid I hurt the bird.  All the way across the meadow, I could hear the old birds crying so sorrowfully, “chick-a-dee-dee-dee,” and it made my heart ache so, that I should have carried it back, if it had not been for you.”

“Oh, dear, I wish you had.  It is too late to carry it back to-night, and what will grandmother say to us.”

“Supposing we don’t tell her to-night, and to-morrow morning we will get up early, and carry it back, and then we can tell her all about it.”

“No, we can’t do that, Frank, for to-morrow is Sunday, and grandmother does not let us go into the woods on Sunday; oh, what shall we do?”