Page:Story of the robins.djvu/94

80 was never instructed herself to be tender to animals."

With this kind of conversation they amused themselves as they walked, every now and then peeping into their baskets to see the little birds, which were very lively and well. They entreated the maid to take them through the orchard, which had a gate that opened into a meadow that lay in their way, having no doubt of obtaining admittance, as it was the usual hour for their friend Joe to work there. They accordingly knocked at the gate, which was immediately opened to them, and Frederick requested Joe to show him the robins' nest. Just at this time the young robins were collected together near the gate, when they were suddenly alarmed with a repetition of the same noises which had formerly terrified them in the nest; and Robin, who was foremost, beheld, to his very great amazement, Frederick and Harriet, the maid who attended them, with Joe the gardener, who, having opened the gate, was, at the request of his young master and mistress, conducting them to the ivy wall. Robin, with all his courage (and, indeed, he was not deficient in this quality), was seized with a great tremor; for if the view he had of the faces of these persons had appeared so dreadful to him when he