"Oh, yes," said Mamma Humming Bird, "I met papa Swift one day while I was getting honey from the beautiful red blossoms of a shrub which grows in the southern end of this valley. I invited him to come to-day and bring all his family, and he said he would, and also that he would come early, for he wished to have us tell him about the lovely place where we spent last summer." Little Coquette Humming Bird sat watching her brother Helenae--what a queer name for a boy Humming Bird, you think--but probably his parents gave it to him because he was always prinking and preening his feathers. "Just like a girl," his brothers said. But however much Coquette might preen her feathers, she never looked as beautiful as her brother Helenae, and that was what she was thinking about as she watched him. He carefully arranged the three long, slender, greenish-black feathers which grew on either side of his head, and the metallic green feathers of his throat were so glistening and bright that little Coquette imagined she could see herself in them as she could in a little spring where she often went for a drink. After Helenae had finished his toilet he moved his wings very rapidly a few times, and raised himself up as high as he could on his feet without taking them off the limb on which he sat, then he settled down, closing his eyes for a moment. Just then Coquette cried out: "The Swifts are coming! Look, no one else could fly so fast! There they are near those old mahogany trees on the bank of the river." There was a grand rustle of preparation that everything might be in order and every one look his best when the cousins arrived. In a few moments mamma Swift and her daughter Cyprelus came, alighting on the same branch together. Then there was a whir of wings that sounded like the wind flapping the sails on a sail-boat, and there was an excited chirping of welcomes and "Merry Christmas" on both sides.