THE HISTORY OF TIP-TOP. 2Q 



" O, yes she is ! " said grave little Alice. " Jamie, you 

 don't understand about these things ; it takes a long, long 

 time to hatch eggs. Old Sam says his hens set three weeks ; 

 only think, almost a month ! " 



Three weeks looked a long time to the five bright pairs 

 of little watching eyes ; but Jamie said, the eggs were so 

 much smaller than hens' eggs, that it would n't take so long 

 to hatch them, he knew. Jamie always thought he knew 

 all about everything, and was so sure of it that he rather 

 took the lead among the children. But one morning, when 

 they pushed their five heads out of the window, the round, 

 patient little bird-eyes were gone, and there seemed to be 

 nothing in the nest but a bunch of something hairy. 



Upon this they all cried out, " O mamma, do come here ! 

 the bird is gone and left her nest ! " And when they cried 

 out, they saw five wide little red mouths open in the nest, 

 and saw that the hairy bunch of stuff was indeed the first 

 of five little birds. 



"They are dreadful-looking things," said Mary ; " I did n't 

 know that little birds began by looking so badly." 



"They seem to be all mouth," said Jamie. 



"We must feed them," said Charlie. 



" Here, little birds, here 's some gingerbread for you," he 

 said ; and he threw a bit of his gingerbread, which fortu- 

 nately only hit the nest on the outside, and fell down among 

 the buttercups, where two crickets made a meal of it, and 



