The Story of a Dewdrop | Page 4

of a warbler. At all events, if it was not a growl, it was the nearest approach his beak could make to one, as he turned on the pillow which had been thus rudely disturbed. After, however, dozing for a few more hours, breakfast over, and his family seen to, off he sped with all his former cheerfulness and activity, till he found himself perched on a branch of the very tallest elm-tree he could pick out, and one, too, right above where the rose and the dewdrop were. Dear me! how he piped, and chirruped, and throstled! I thought the Nightingale had done wonders in that way; but it was nothing to the Thrush. He doubtless was under the impression that the Dewdrop was sound asleep, and needed no ordinary efforts in the way of rousing. I am sure if one could have dived under the yellow feathers, the little throat must have been purple.
After these musical preliminaries, our new friend (Songster No. 2) ventured by-and-by to come nearer. But, in doing so, he could hardly believe his eyes, specially after what the Nightingale had told him.
"A teardrop" indeed! There was not a bit of the tear about it. Where had been the Nightingale's eyes? It was something at all events very like a bright, unmistakable, beautiful diamond on which the Thrush looked. How it glistened and sparkled; and that too with all the prismatic colours! The spectator could only (what was an effort to any member of the Thrush family) gaze in mute wonder.
"What in all the world can you be, you lovely, silent sleeper on the rose-leaf, with your round crystal cheeks? Dewdrop we thought you were; teardrop you say you are: I cannot think you are either. If you are not a diamond set in rubies--stolen, for anything I know, from yesterday's rainbow--you look the thing uncommonly well."
"I am indeed a diamond," answered the Dewdrop. "Look at me," said the little gleaming dot, with the air of an aristocrat; "do you not say I am fit for a monarch's crown? And it is a monarch's crown I am presently to be set in. Every day I meet the Queen of the Morning.--Stay," it suddenly exclaimed, "I see her even now advancing with her rosy feet, 'sowing the earth with pearls.' See, for yourself, how the few stars which still linger in the sky, and which with their glittering torches lighted her out of the Eastern Gate, are paling every minute behind her! She says, of all the jewels in her tiara there is not one she is fonder of, or prouder of, than me. Away, away, little bird," stammered out the Dewdrop, with some nervous twitchings presently to be accounted for; "I must prepare to meet this Queen Aurora. But," it added in a kind of afterthought, "the procession will soon be over; come back shortly and see me, if you please." The keen diamond eye twinkled with a humorous, comical expression when these last words were uttered; as much as to say, "I shall manage to cheat you, old fellow, wont I?"
The Thrush had some small quantum of poetry in his nature; but he had a great deal of shrewd common sense too, and an immense idea of propriety. Accordingly, he at once took the hint as to departure; but with guileless simplicity cherished the resolution of renewing the intercourse, in an hour or two at latest, after the royal cavalcade had swept by.
This interlude was no peculiar hardship to our erratic friend, who knew he could spend the time merrily and profitably among his numerous kinsfolk in the groves. To tell the truth, he was not sorry to get away from the court pageantry, as all such ceremonial and pomp of circumstance was an abomination to him, and had always been so. It was, therefore, with pleasant anticipations of an early return that, by a few fleet bounces, he was lost from sight in the nearest thicket.
Barely, however, had the specified period elapsed, when he was back again upon his twig on the tall elm. He had certainly not exhausted his strength or conversational music-powers in that round of morning visits, for he renewed, then and there, his merriest notes, quite in the old style; and after this prelude, by way of making sure that the course was clear, he flew with more than wonted alacrity in the direction of the rose-leaf.
But, can you imagine? To his wonder, sorrow, and chagrin, lo! when he looked for it, the leaf was empty! Its small householder was gone! Not a trace of either Dewdrop or Diamond left! There was no need of asking any questions; he comprehended in a moment what the roguish twinkle of the eye meant an hour before. He had, in a word,