“I quite allow it,” said Chick. “That is a scientific view of education which you poets would do well to act on. But the Professor growled at me when I asked him why wagtails wag their tails, and said there would have been some use in asking _how_ they do it. And then he took me into his room, and showed me diagrams, and explained the muscular system of a bird, which I never understood before; and he kept me a whole hour there, till at last he got quite sweet again. And after that he said he’d give me a piece of advice, which I’ll hand on to you, and I hope it will do you good.” “I’m sitting at your feet,” said the Poet, “go on.” “Well, what he said was this: ‘You young fellows are a deal too anxious to get hold of a reason for everything; and I dare say you think it a fine thing to come and try to puzzle us with questions. Now what you have to learn here at present is not reasons, but facts. Leave alone for the present these questions that begin with the word _why_; there are many of them that can never be answered, as far as I can see, or they can only be answered by getting together and properly arranging a great quantity of facts. Your wagtail question is just one of this kind. You have no more business to be asking me such a question, than a young wagtail has to be asking its parents why it wags its tail. You stick to facts, and don’t ask _why_ a thing is, until you know altogether and exactly _that_ it is and _how_ it is.’ “And I’ve been sticking to facts ever since,” added Chick; “and you’d much better do the same. Pull on, Poet; and whenever you see a wagtail think of what I’ve told you, and your poetic brain will be all the better for it.” “There she goes,” said the Poet: “I wonder why she stopped so long. I really think she was listening to us.” “I might have spared you the Professor’s sermon,” said Chick. “Pull on, Poet; go ahead. Here we are running into the bank while you’re asking questions that begin with _why_!” And they dropped slowly down the stream. The Poet was quite right. Kelpie had been listening--drinking in every word of the Professor’s sermon. A delicious and soothing feeling grew upon her at each sentence, and when it was over she sprang upon her wings with a sense that a whole load of trouble had been taken off her mind. “They were all wrong,” she said to herself: “thrush, jackdaw, kingfisher, and especially that wicked old crow. Why couldn’t they tell me the truth? But that’s a question that begins with _why_, and I must stick hard to facts.” Kelpie kept hard to her facts, and found her happiness in doing so. She kept to flies, beetles, and small crustaceans; she kept hard to her husband when the pairing-time came, and to her eggs and young; she kept to the laws of her kind, and left the questions that begin with “why” to the Professor and his species. THE LIGHTHOUSE.