"I wonder what my godmother meant when she looked at my legs and sighed
so bitterly? I wonder why I can't walk straight and steady like my nurse
only I wouldn't like to have her great, noisy, clumping shoes. Still it
would be very nice to move about quickly--perhaps to fly, like a bird,
like that string of birds I saw the other day skimming across the sky,
one after the other."

These were the passage-birds--the only living creatures that ever
crossed the lonely plain; and he had been much interested in them,
wonder-ing whence they came and whither they were going.

"How nice it must be to be a bird! If legs are no good, why cannot one
have wings? People have wings when they die--perhaps; I wish I were
dead, that I do. I am so tired, so tired; and nobody cares for me.
Nobody ever did care for me, except perhaps my godmother. Godmother,
dear, have you quite forsaken me?"

He stretched himself wearily, gathered himself up, and dropped his head
upon his hands; as he did so, he felt somebody kiss him at the back
of his neck, and, turning, found that he was resting, not on the sofa
pillows, but on a warm shoulder--that of the little old woman clothed in
gray.

How glad he was to see her! How he looked into her kind eyes and felt
her hands, to see if she were all real and alive! then put both his arms
round her neck, and kissed her as if he would never have done kissing.

"Stop, stop!" cried she, pretending to be smothered. "I see you have
not forgotten my teachings. Kissing is a good thing--in moderation. Only
just let me have breath to speak one word."