Aunt Jane turned her head and smiled at the sparrow, but she did not stop playing. Your heart was beating in time to the music, as you sat on the hassock by the piano, watching the bird and the sun. The sparrow danced like Aunt Jane’s fingers, and put up his little open bill. He was singing, though you could not hear. "But, Auntie." "Yes." "Who told the little bird?" "God told the little bird, dearie—away down South where the oranges and roses grow in the winter, and there isn’t any snow. And the little bird flew up here to Ourtown to build his nest and sing in our maple-tree." Your eyes were so wide now that you had no voice at all. You just sat there on the hassock while Aunt Jane played. Away down South ... away down South, singing in an orange-tree, you saw the little bird ... but now he stopped to listen with his head on one side, and his bright eye shining, while the warm wind rustled in the leaves ... God was telling him ... So the little bird spread his wings and flew ... away up in the blue sky, above the trees, above the steeples, over the hills and running brooks ... miles and miles and miles ... till he came to Our Yard, in the sun. "And here he is now," you ended aloud your little story, for you had found your voice again. "Who is here, dearie?" asked Aunt Jane, still playing. "Why, the little bird," you said. The sparrow flew away. The sun came through the window to where you sat on the hassock, by the piano. It warmed your knees and told you—what it told the buds, what God told the little bird in the orange-tree. Like the little bird you could stay no longer. You ran out-of-doors into the soft, sweet wind and the morning. Aunt Jane gave the keys a last caress. Grandmother turned in her chair by the sitting-room window. "What were you playing, Janey?" "Mendelssohn’s ’Spring Song,’ Mother." The little gray Grandmother looked out-of-doors again to where you played, singing, in the sun. "Isn’t it beautiful?" she murmured. You waved your hand to her and laughed, and she nodded back at you, smiling at your fun. "Bless his heart, _he’s_ playing the music, too," she said. *Little Sister* In the daytime she played with you, and believed all you said, and was always ready to cry. At night she slept with you and the four dolls. She was your little sister, Lizbeth. "Whose little girl are you?" they would ask her. If she were sitting in Father’s lap, she would doubtless reply— "Father’s little girl." But— "Oh, _Lizbeth_!" Mother would cry. "—and Mother’s," Lizbeth would add, to keep peace in the family. Though she never mentioned you at such times, she told you privately that she would marry you when you grew to be a man, and publicly she remembered you in her prayers. Kneeling down at Mother’s knee, you and Lizbeth, in your little white nighties, before you went to bed, you said "Now I lay me" in unison, and ended with blessing every one, only at the very end _you_ said: