"I'd be a hummingbird," lisped Jessie, "'cause it's the prettiest of all 'ittle birds."
"Pretty, yes," observed Annie, her sister; "but I think that its prettiness is rather an evil to it than a good. If you were a hummingbird, Jessie, you would very likely be caught, killed, and stuffed for the sake of your beauty."
"And what says our little Minnie?" inquired Clara of a plump, fair, flaxen-haired child who sat on a footstool next to Jessie, with her arm round her young companion.
"I'd be a beauty swan, swimming about amongst the lilies, under the shady trees," said the child, who had admired the swan and his mate, with their little cygnets, floating on the lake, as she had seen them that morning.
"Give us your reason," said Clara.
"I like paddling about in the water, it's so nice," was the simple reply.
"Ay, you would like it in summer," cried Phil, "when the lilies are in flower, and the trees in leaf. But I know a little lady who in winter does not care to stir off the hearth-rug, and is ready to cry if sent out into the cold. She would not then care to be a swan, and paddle about on the ice."
"I'd rather be a swallow," cried Felix, "and escape altogether from winter with its frosts and its snows. A life of active pleasure, not of lazy enjoyment, for me! I like to travel and see distant lands and what fun it would be just to spread one's wings and be off for France, Italy, or Algiers, without any trouble of packing a trunk, with nothing heavier to carry than feathers, and no railway tickets to pay for, or bills at hotels on the way!"
"Were you a swallow, you'd have a bill wherever you flew," laughed Phil.
"Oh! A precious light one," said Felix gaily.