“But, Nurse, there are a great many other things to be seen at the Museum besides--I am sure you would like to see the wild beasts and the birds. Oh! the birds are so beautiful; how Amy would admire the little humming-birds--they are scarcely bigger than the wild bees we had in the island; they have such lovely feathers, purple, and green, and scarlet, and all beautiful bright colours. Papa says that when they are flitting about amongst the flowers, they are quite splendid and dazzling to the eye; and they shoot those dear little birds with little guns loaded with water; the water does not injure their feathers by wounding them, it only frightens them, and then they fall down and die. There were no humming-birds in the island. I wish there had been--I would not have shot them, even with water, but I would have tried to catch them in some way without hurting them, and would have tamed them as I did my other birds; I do hope you will go to the Museum, Nurse, and take Amy, she will be so surprised, for I don’t think there is a bird in the whole world that is not there; and I am sure you would like to see the owls, for you like wise birds, and they look so wise; there were large owls, and little owls, and every kind, and one little owl near the corner of the glass case had such a pretty face. Then there were beautiful pheasants--and the argus-pheasant with its thousand eyes; oh! you must go; Amy, would not you like it so much?” “Yes, Miss Leila, I would like it; but a bird with a thousand eyes, I think it would frighten me.” “No, it would not,” Leila answered, smiling; “for it has not really a thousand eyes, it has only spots on its feathers; but it is a poetical way of speaking that----” Nurse looked very grave. “How often have I told you, Miss Leila, that I do not like a poetical way of speaking, and now you see the bad effects of it; from my experience, I knew that no bird had a thousand eyes, but Amy did not; you should speak to her in a way she can understand; but you do run on so. Is there no possibility of making you think of what you are about? I see clearly that pocket never will be finished.” Leila was silent for a moment, then jumping up from her seat, she held the pocket up in the air in a triumphant manner, exclaiming,--“Now, Nurse, look if I cannot both talk and stitch; see, it is quite finished, and beautifully done; and now I must go and sing to papa.” “She is a dear child,” Nurse observed, as she looked up for a moment from her work and followed Leila’s light steps with affectionate interest; “and she is far from being a bad needle-woman either, though I should like well to see her more steady, and taking a greater interest in it; but, Amy, though Miss Leila in most things sets you a most superior example, you must never talk as she does sometimes--you must never be what she calls poetical. I would rather that she were not so either; but that is a matter for her papa to decide, not me.” CHAPTER XIV.