to hear?'

"'Well,' I said, 'now all of you shut your eyes and listen, and don't
speak till I tell you.'

"After a short time I told them to open their eyes; and I asked John,
who was the eldest, what he had heard.

"'First of all I heard the birds singing, then I noticed that there were
different sorts of birds singing: I heard the blackbird, the thrush, the
little finches, and the warblers--I could not tell you how many; some of
them singing as if they could not make sound enough, and others sung a
low song, with twitterings and chatterings all to themselves. Some
seemed calling to birds a long way off; then I heard those other birds
answer, but the sound was so faint that I should not have heard it at
all if we had not been so still. I was trying to catch a faint sound of
a bird some distance down the wood, which sounded like the coo of the
wood-pigeon, when you said, "Open your eyes."'

"Then I turned to Harry--your father, children--and he said, 'Of course
I heard the birds, but I thought, I can hear them any day; I shall
listen for all sorts of odd sounds. I heard the distant rumble of a
farmer's waggon, and the cows lowing at Brown's farm; every now and
again I heard the sound of the village blacksmith's hammer, the faint
puffing of a train, a man's footsteps coming through the wood, and the
voices of boys--after birds' nests, I suppose.'

"'Well, Lizzie, what did you hear?' I asked, turning to one of the
girls.