two hundred children like that, in a small household! But you shall see them, ma'am, when they come ... I really have to control myself in order not to eat them, they're such dears!"

"Well, I'll tell you something, Goody Cray-Fish," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "When my young ones are out, you shall have the shells."

"Oh, how good of you, ma'am!" said the cray-fish. "You could not possibly do me a greater kindness. For I promise you I shall eat them. I eat as much chalk as I can get hold of against the time when I change my things, for that puts starch into the new shirt. But then, also, you must really promise me, ma'am, to look at my young ones. They are so sweet that, goodness knows, I should like to eat them...."

At that moment, a large carp appeared in the water, with a sad, weary face:

"You do eat them," he said.

"Oh!" yelled Goody, and went backwards into her hole and showed herself no more.

But Mrs. Reed-Warbler fainted on her five eggs and the carp swam on with his sad, weary face.

CHAPTER IV

The Water-Spider

Little Mrs. Reed-Warbler was not feeling very well.

She was nervous and tired from sitting on the eggs and she had just a touch of fever. She could not sleep at night, or else she dreamt of the cray-fish and the carp and the eel and screamed so loud that her husband nearly fell into the pond with fright.

"I wish we had gone somewhere else," she said. "Obviously, there's none but common people in this pond. Just think how upset I was about Goody Cray-Fish. Do you really believe she eats her children?"

Before he could reply, the eel stuck his head out of the mud and made his bow:

"Absolutely, madam," he said, "ab-so-lutely. That is to say, if she can get hold of them. They decamp as soon as they can, for they have an inkling, you know, of what's awaiting them. Children are cleverer than people think."

"But that's terrible," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Oh, well," said the eel, "one eats so many things from year's end to year's end! I don't condemn her for that. But, I admit, it doesn't look well amid all that show of affection.... Hullo, there's the pike!... Forgive me for retiring in the middle of this interesting conversation."

He was off.

And the pike appeared among the reeds with wide-open mouth and rows of sharp teeth and angry eyes.

"Oof!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Come down here and I'll eat you," said the pike, grinning with all his teeth.

"Please keep to your own element," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, indignantly.

"I eat everything," said the pike, "ev-e-ry-thing. I smell eel, I smell cray-fish, I smell carp. Where are they? Tell me at once, or I'll break your reed with one blow of my tail!"

The reed-warblers were silent for sheer terror. And the pike struck out with his tail and swam away. The blow was so powerful that the reeds sighed and swayed and the birds flew up with startled screams. But the reeds held and the nest remained where it was. Mrs. Reed-Warbler settled down again and her husband began to sing, so that no one should see how frightened he had been. Then she said:

"A nice place this!"

"You take things too much to heart," said he. "Life is the same everywhere; and we must be satisfied as long as we can get on well together. I am very much afraid that all this excitement will hurt the children's voices and then they will disgrace us at the autumn concert. Pull yourself together and control yourself!"

THE PIKE APPEARED AMONG THE REEDS [p. 38

"It's easy for you to talk," she said. "And I know well enough what life is worth. My innocent little sister was eaten by an adder and my mother was caught by a hawk, just after she had taught us to fly. I myself had to travel in hot haste to Italy, last autumn, if I didn't want to die of hunger. Then you came; and I have already learnt that marriage is not an unmixed blessing. After all, one would be glad of peace just after the children are born. And then, of course, I think of what the children will grow up like in this murderers' den. Children take after others. And such examples as they see before them here! Really, it might end in their eating their parents!"

"Yes, why not, if they taste good?" asked a ladylike voice on the surface of the water.

Mrs. Reed-Warbler shrank back and hardly dared look down.

A little water-spider sat on the leaf of a water-lily and smoothed her fine velvet dress.

"You're looking very hard at me, Mrs. Reed-Warbler, but you won't eat me," she said. "I lie too heavy on the stomach. I am a bit poisonous ... just poisonous enough, of course, and no more. Apart from that, I am really the most inoffensive woman in the water."

"And you say that one ought to eat one's parents?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Maybe that was a rather free way of talking to a bird," said the spider. "What suits one doesn't necessarily suit another. I only know that I ate my mother last year and a fine, fat, old lady she was."

"Sing to me, or I'll die!" screamed Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

Her husband sang. And, meanwhile, they looked down at the water-spider.

She plunged head foremost into the water. For a moment, she let her abdomen float on the surface of the pond and distended her spinnerets till they were full of air. Then the creature sank and shone like silver as she glided down to the bottom.

"That's very, very pretty," said the reed-warbler.

"Be quiet," said his wife and stared till she nearly strained her neck.

Deep down in a bush, the spider had spun a bell, which she filled with air. The bell was built of the finest yarn that she was able to supply and fastened on every side with strong, fine threads, so that it could not float away. And round about it was a big web for catching insects.... Just now a water-mite was hanging in it and the spider took her into the bell and sucked her out.

"It's really remarkable," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "She has a nest just as we have, hung up between the reeds. For all we know, she may sit on her eggs."

"Ask her," said the reed-warbler.

"I want first to get to the bottom of that story about her mother," said she, sternly.

Soon after, the spider came up again and sat on the leaf of the water-lily and smoothed herself out.

"You were looking down at me, weren't you?" she said. "Yes ... I have quite a nice place, haven't I? A regular smart little parlour. You must know I am an animal that loves fresh air, like Mr. Reed-Warbler and yourself. And, as my business happens to lie in the water, it was easiest for me to arrange it this way. It's thoroughly cosy down there, I assure you. And, in the winter, I lock the door and sleep and snore the whole day long."