“But there was no policeman; and who was this sitting by my side? Why, it was dear old Nelly! And as she laid her head against mine, with all that hair of hers tumbling over my face, that kind gentleman came into the room from the garden, where he had been trying to quiet himself down a bit, I think, and patted both our heads, without saying ever a word. “After a bit, however, he made us sit up, and gave us a good talking to. It was not Mag’s fault, he said, that we had got into such a terrible scrape, but mine for disobeying Miss Pringle and keeping the bird in the stable; and Nelly’s, too, for leading me on to it. And we must take great care of Mag now that he had got us out of the scrape, and keep him, to remind us not to get into any more. “And we kept him to the last day of his life; and as for scrapes, I don’t think we ever got into any more, at least, not such bad ones as that was—eh, Nelly?” And seeing me open my eyes wide, he laughed, and asked me whether I hadn’t found it out long before the story came to an end, and then, putting his arm round his bonny wife, he added, “Yes, lad, here’s my old Nelly, and she’ll climb a tree for you to-morrow, if you ask her.” I gave my old friend Nelly a good kiss (with the entire approval of her husband), made my bow to the magpie, and ran home to my grandfather’s. And as we sat together that night, I got him to tell me the Story over again, from the moment when he took a fancy to the boy who caught his horse, to the time when he gave him his best farm, and saw him safely married to Nelly. “I gave her away myself,” said he, “and I gave her to one of the best fellows and truest friends I have ever known. Miss Pringle gave him £50, and left him £500 more. But he always will have it that the magpie was at the bottom of all his luck, and I never would contradict him.” SELINA’S STARLING There was no such plucky and untiring little woman as Selina in all our village. I say _was_, for I am thinking of years ago, at the time when her Starling came to her; but she is with us still, plucky and indefatigable as ever, but now a bent and bowed figure of a tiny little old woman, left alone in the world, but for her one faithful friend.