"These sons were taught, as they grew up, that the common people should be well cared for, and protected in their rights; and, when they became men, they devoted their lives to doing them good in trying to obtain advantages for them, such as their having more land to cultivate, and so forth. They were noble-minded and virtuous men. They made very eloquent speeches in the Forum,* and became so celebrated, that their names shine out now in Roman history like jewels indeed. They were called the Gracchi, because their father's name was Gracchus."

At that moment a gun was fired off in the villa, which seemed like an echo of Glassée's last word (crack-us!), only ten million times louder. It shivered every elf into atoms; at least, they all vanished, and did not appear again for many hours after so terrible a fright!

* The place where public speeches were made and the business of the people was attended to.

CHAPTER VI.

THE FIFTH DAY.

WE may know, although the fairies might not, that the gun which was fired off that day brought down some of those dear little brown thrushes that fly about so merrily in the garden and villa. Some sad cacciatore (sportsman) was looking for larks, and fired upon our pretty thrushes instead. The fat, pretty creatures! How gayly they chirp 'all the morning among the trees; and, long before dusky evening comes, they are snugly perched away there among the branches for their night's repose. It is wonderful how they cluster away in flocks, filling some particular trees full, full, with their little feathered bodies.

You shake the branches, or startle them but a

little, even, and out comes a whole myriad of birds, fluttering, twittering, in a manner as if they thought that perhaps an earthquake had taken place, and was demolishing their comfortable habitations: but you walk away, and soon they all go nestling back to their hidden-away perches, and settle themselves down a second time to their nightly nap; and with the gentle swaying of the boughs, and the green leafy curtains spread around, they need no better or more beautiful place in which to sleep.

How sagacious were those same little thrushes this summer,* when every morning on mamma's chamber window-sill was placed a large white dish full of bread, inviting the pretty creatures to come and eat! How familiarly they would flock to this enticing breakfast! and, before many hours, not a particle would be left. Alas! one day, down fell

the dish, — far, far, to

the ground below, and

* The summer that the family spent in Rome, following the one

spent at the Baths of Lucca. See "Child-life in Italy."

broke into a thousand pieces!* Then a black dish was substituted, but filled with white bread all the same. The knowing creatures may have eyed it in the distance, but not once to the window-sill did they make their approach.

The next day, and the next, and the next, it was still the same for two or three weeks, even, the sturdy little beings kept to their own counsels. Never, I presume they vowed, never, would they eat out of a black dish. In time, another white one was procured, and put in the place of the black one, filled, as usual, with bread; and not half an hour had elapsed before down they came, the feathered tribe, as if they had all the time been standing on the watch; and not a crumb did they leave in the dish that night.†

Why would they not eat from the black one? the dainty things! Did some instinct bid them beware? Perhaps they thought that the fairies had been playing pranks upon their dish, and, not

* The window was sixty feet from the ground.

†The whole of the above story is a fact.

to get woven in a fairy-net, had kept themselves all aloof!

We know not how that may be; but of this we are aware the report of the same gun that thrilled through the little birds, and took down so many of them, thrilled though the fairies also, and made them escape as if for their very lives. Whither they went never has been found out; for neither in a bush, nor under a leaf or flower, did they appear to be concealed. Quite invisible for hours did they remain; and when they came out, at length, it was with a flutter and tremor that made them appear still more fragile and fairy-like than ever. Oh, how dreadful must that gun have been to fairy nerves!-so dreadful, that it is a wonder they ever had boldness enough to venture out again. They certainly did keep hidden away for a long time and it was even late the next day when they assembled as usual; so late, that Glassée thought she would not be able to tell half a story. But she lost not a moment in commencing; and