I told him I could not get up a tree without the sun to show me the way; when he came, I would try. “Kings seldom have wings!” I added. “King! king!” cried one, “oo knows none of us hasn’t no wings--foolis feddery tings! Arms and legs is better.” “That is true. I can get up without wings--and carry straws in my mouth too, to build my nest with!” “Oo knows!” he answered, and went away sucking his thumb. A moment after, I heard him calling out of his nest, a great way up a walnut tree of enormous size, “Up adain, king! Dood night! I seepy!” And I heard no more of him till he woke me in the morning. CHAPTER XXXIII. LONA’S NARRATIVE I lay down by a tree, and one and one or in little groups, the children left me and climbed to their nests. They were always so tired at night and so rested in the morning, that they were equally glad to go to sleep and to get up again. I, although tired also, lay awake: Lona had not bid me good night, and I was sure she would come. I had been struck, the moment I saw her again, with her resemblance to the princess, and could not doubt her the daughter of whom Adam had told me; but in Lona the dazzling beauty of Lilith was softened by childlikeness, and deepened by the sense of motherhood. “She is occupied probably,” I said to myself, “with the child of the woman I met fleeing!” who, she had already told me, was not half mother enough. She came at length, sat down beside me, and after a few moments of silent delight, expressed mainly by stroking my face and hands, began to tell me everything that had befallen since I went. The moon appeared as we talked, and now and then, through the leaves, lighted for a quivering moment her beautiful face--full of thought, and a care whose love redeemed and glorified it. How such a child should have been born of such a mother--such a woman of such a princess, was hard to understand; but then, happily, she had two parents--say rather, three! She drew my heart by what in me was likest herself, and I loved her as one who, grow to what perfection she might, could only become the more a child. I knew now that I loved her when I left her, and that the hope of seeing her again had been my main comfort. Every word she spoke seemed to go straight to my heart, and, like the truth itself, make it purer.