Immediately he felt something queer and hard fixing itself to the bridge
of his nose. It was a pair of the prettiest gold spectacles ever seen;
and looking downward, he found that, though ever so high above the
ground, he could see every minute blade of grass, every tiny bud and
flower--nay, even the insects that walked over them.

"Thank you, thank you!" he cried, in a gush of gratitude--to anybody or
everybody, but especially to his dear godmother, who he felt sure had
given him this new present. He amused himself with it for ever so long,
with his chin pressed on the rim of the cloak, gazing down upon the
grass, every square foot of which was a mine of wonders.

Then, just to rest his eyes, he turned them up to the sky--the blue,
bright, empty sky, which he had looked at so often and seen nothing.

Now surely there was something. A long, black, wavy line, moving on
in the distance, not by chance, as the clouds move apparently, but
deliberately, as if it were alive. He might have seen it before--he
almost thought he had; but then he could not tell what it was. Looking
at it through his spectacles, he discovered that it really was alive;
being a long string of birds, flying one after the other, their wings
moving steadily and their heads pointed in one direction, as steadily as
if each were a little ship, guided invisibly by an unerring helm.

"They must be the passage-birds flying seaward!" cried the boy, who had
read a little about them, and had a great talent for putting two and
two together and finding out all he could. "Oh, how I should like to see
them quite close, and to know where they come from and whither they are
going! How I wish I knew everything in all the world!"