"'Oh, how sweet!' she cried."
"'It will come true, my child, if you do as I bid you. You must allow my bird to perch on your shoulder, and be with you wherever you go. He is a talking bird, and whenever you are tempted to give an angry answer, or speak a bitter word'—Gerda hung her head; alas! she knew that this would be very often—'you must let the bird speak for you. Only do this, and in a few months you will be the happiest girl in the world.'
"'But what will people say?' stammered Gerda, quite bewildered.
"'Directly my bird touches your shoulder he will become invisible; you will feel him, but no one will see him; and when he speaks, his voice will be so like yours that no one can tell the difference. Your part is to keep down the angry words that rise to your lips. My sweet bird will do the rest,' and she kissed the bird's bright eyes, and placed him gently on Gerda's shoulder, and, behold! though she could feel the light fluttering of feathers against her cheek, she could see nothing."
"What can be the meaning of this—what is the bird going to do?" thinks Betty, as she hastily turns the page.
Betty has quite forgotten her headache, and reads on:—
"Just at that moment, Gerda saw her little pet kid jump quite over the wall of the yard where her father's fiercest watch-dog was chained. 'Oh, it will be killed!' she cried, and ran swiftly to the rescue. But when she returned with the kid in her arms, the old woman had gone. 'And I never thanked her! You tiresome creature—it was all your fault!'
"That is what she began to say as she lifted her hand to beat the poor little kid, but at the same instant she felt the invisible bird fluttering at her cheek again, and, lo and behold! a voice—a voice exactly like her own, only much sweeter—struck in ere she could finish the sentence: 'Poor little kid, you knew no better, and I am sure the old woman will understand I did not mean to be ungrateful—she had such kind, wise eyes.'