Now, selfish and greedy although he was, and disliked by the rest of the family, he had a little sister,--which was, that dear duckling you see swimming at the front of its mother, as if asking her if it may go out of the water for a little time, and have a waddle on the grass, for it is a most dutiful duckling,--and this little sister was the only one of the family that treated the Greedy Duckling kindly, for she used to say, "Bad as he is, he's my brother, and it's my duty to bear with him." After a time, when, on account of his selfishness and greediness, the rest of the family had "sent him to Coventry," which means that they wouldn't have anything to do with him,--neither eat, drink, nor swim with him, nor even exchange so much as a friendly "quack,"--then it was that he began to appreciate the kindness and self-sacrifice of his little sister, who would go and sit with him for the hour together, though he was too sulky at first even to "quack" to her. It so happened one day, when his pretty little sister had been talking to him, and telling him how much happier his life would be if he were more social, and how greatly his health would be improved if he ate less, that after saying, "I don't care if they won't have me amongst 'em; little Sukey gives me plenty to eat, and I can sleep well enough by myself, and much better than if they were all quacking about me; and though you come and stay with me, I don't ask you, nor I don't want you; and I dare say you only do it to please yourself, and----," before he could say another word, his little sister said, "Run, run!" for she had seen a shadow on the grass, and knew that a great hawk was hanging over them; and they had only just time to pop under the long, trailing canes of a bramble, before down the hawk came with such a sweep, that they could feel the cold wind raised by the flapping of his great wings, though he could not reach them for the bramble; nor did he try to get at them where they were sheltered, for the hawk only strikes his prey while on the wing, picking it up and keeping hold of it somehow, just as Betty does a lump of coal, which she has made a snap at, and seized with the tongs. "He would have been sure to have had you," said the little sister, after the hawk had flown away over the trees, "as you stood the farthest out, and are so fat; and I was so near the bramble, he would hardly have had room for the full spread of his wings, if he had made a snap at me." "I don't see that," replied the Greedy Duckling, "for as I'm so heavy, I think he would have been glad to have dropped me before he had reached his nest; while as for you, you're such a light bit of a thing, he would have carried you off as easily almost as he would a fly that had settled on his back."