"I do wish she would hurry up," he thought, anxious for Mrs. Wren to arrive. "It takes a female so long to get ready to go anywhere. I saw an impudent Blue Jay around here this morning and he may take a fancy to that apartment up there. I wouldn't like to tackle him, and so, to let him see that it is rented, I'll fetch a few more straws," and off Mr. Wren flew, returning in a very little while with his bill full. Well, about the first of April Mrs. Wren arrived, quite tired with her journey, but as sprightly and talkative as ever. Mr. Wren greeted her with one of his loudest songs, and they flew about chattering and singing for quite a while. "I suppose," said she, resting at length on the limb of a maple tree, "that you have been flying about, eating and drinking and talking with the other Mr. Wrens, and not looking for a house at all. That is the way with your sex generally, when there is any work to be done." "Oh, it is?" said Mr. Wren, his feathers ruffled in a minute. "That's my reward for staying about this house and the grounds all the time, is it? My whole time has been taken up in house hunting, let me tell you, Mrs. Wren, and in keeping my eye on one particular apartment which is to let up there." "Where?" chirped Mrs. Wren, her bright eyes traveling up and down the side of the house before them. "I don't see a box or crevice anywhere." "Oh, you don't?" said Mr. Wren, mimicking her tone and air, "not a single box or crevice anywhere. Who said anything about either, I'd like to know?" "Why, you did, Mr. Wren," said Mrs. Jenny, every feather on top of her head standing on end. "You did, as plain as could be." "I said nothing of the sort," retorted Mr. Wren, "I never mentioned a box or crevice once." "Then what did you say," returned Mrs. Wren with a little cackling sort of a laugh, "what kind of a house is up there to let anyway?" "Talk about females being as sharp as we males," muttered Mr. Wren, "I never saw so stupid a creature in my life"--then aloud, "don't you see that tin tea-pot hanging on a nail under the porch, Mrs. Wren?" "A tin tea-pot!" scornfully. "Do you think a bird born and bred as I was would go to housekeeping in an old tea-pot, Mr. Wren? You forget, surely that my father was a----" "Oh, bother your father," ungallantly retorted Mr. Wren. "I'm tired and sick of that subject. If you don't like the looks of that house up there say so, and I'll take you to see several others." "Oh, well," said Mrs. Wren, who all the time had thought the tea-pot just the cutest little apartment in the world, "I'll fly up there and examine it. Maybe it will do." "It's just lovely," she announced, flying back to the tree, and for a minute or two they chattered and sang, and fluttered about in such a joyful manner that some of their bird neighbors flew over, curious to hear and see.