162 BEAUTIFUL BIRDS 
see a Humming-bird’s nest, you will think them all 
coarse—yes, coarse—by comparison. And to think 
of that bright little glittering thing, sitting there alive 
and warm, in its warm little soft fairy nest, and then 
to think of it in‘a Aat—and dead! Oh, dear !—dusty 
too, I feel sure. OA, dear! But it is all the fault of 
that most wicked little demon, and you are going to 
set it right. 
Now perhaps you will wonder why there has been 
nothing about promising yet, for there have been 
thirteen Humming-birds in the two last chapters, and 
not a single promise about any of them. But then, 
what would be the use of promising about thirteen 
when there are four hundred and more? It would be 
ever so much better, / think, to promise about all the 
four hundred and more together, and that is what I want 
you to ask your mother to do. Then all those little 
glittering, jewelly, fairy-like things will go on living 
and being happy—will go on glittering and gleam- 
ing, flashing through the air, sparkling amongst the 
flowers, sitting and shining in dear little soft swinging 
cradles, on the tips of broad, green palm leaves, or 
the petals of fair, drooping flowers. ‘They will go on 
being /:ving sunbeams then, not poor, dead, dusty 
ones in hats. And it will be you who will have done 
this, you who will have kept sunbeams alive in the 
world, instead of letting them be killed and go out of 
