"Wife," replied the poor fisherman, "what could I do? I found these dear little creatures floating on the river below, and they would have died of hunger, or have been drowned, if I had not rescued them. Heaven, which has sent us these two more children, will assist us to provide for them." And so it proved; and the little ones, a boy and a girl, grew up healthy and robust, together with the eight other children. They were both so good, so docile, and so peaceable, that the fisherman and his wife loved them exceedingly, and always held them up as examples to the other children; but they, envious and enraged, did them a thousand injustices and injuries. To escape from these cruelties, the twins would take refuge together among the thickets and on the river's banks; there they would divert themselves with the birds, and carry crumbs of bread to them; and the birds, grateful to them for their kindness, would fly to meet them, and teach them the bird-language. The children learned to converse with the birds very quickly, and thus they could amuse themselves with their feathered friends, who also taught them many other very good and useful things, one of them being how to get up early in the morning, and another, how to sing. One day when the fisherman's children were more annoying than they had ever been before, they said to the twins: "We are the true-born children of Christians, but you, with all your neatness and superiority, are but castaways, without any other father or mother than the river, and belong to the toads and frogs!" Upon receiving this insult the poor brother and sister were so filled with shame and distress that they determined to go right away from home and travel in search of their real parents At the early dawn next day they got up and went forth without any one knowing it, and began their journey, travelling they knew not whither. Half the day passed by, and they had not perceived as yet any abode, nor seen a single living being. They were hungry, thirsty, and tired, when on turning round a hillside, they discovered a little house and, on reaching it, they found it empty and its inhabitants absent. Thoroughly disheartened, they seated themselves on a bench in the doorway to rest. After a little while they noticed a number of swallows collected together under the eaves of the roof, and as these birds are such chatter-boxes, they began to prattle with one another. Having learned the language of birds, the children knew what the swallows said. "Holloa! my lady friend," said one of the birds, who had a somewhat rustic air about it, to another that was of a very elegant and distinguished mien, "my eyes are glad to see you once more! I thought you had forgotten your country friends. How do you live in the palace?"