"That was a terrible business," said the water-lily.
"My husband is dead," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler and sang a dirge that would have moved a stone.
"My respectful condolences, madam," said the eel and came up out of the mud. "But will you admit that I was right? Think how much care and sorrow one escapes by keeping out of all this domesticity. I don't know my wife, as I once had the honour of telling you; I have never seen her. It wouldn't occur to me to shed a tear if anyone told me that she was dead."
"You horrid, heartless person!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "To talk like that to a widow with five children, all unprovided for, and one of them a cripple too!"
"Oh, those women!" said the eel and disappeared.
That evening, little Mrs. Reed-Warbler sat and thought things over.
"We must go," she said, "this very night. There's nothing else for us to do. If we fly and hop as well as we can and work hard and behave sensibly, we shall be all right."
"I can't keep up with you," said the crippled child.
"I was forgetting you," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.
She looked at the poor child for a while. Then she shook her wings and took a quick resolve: