"Oh, in default of a dragon, one can do dragon's work oneself,"
she answered lightly. "Or, rather, one can make oneself an
instrument of justice."

"All the same, I should call it uncommonly hard luck to be born
a sparrow--within your jurisdiction," he said.

"It is not an affair of luck," said she. "One is born a
sparrow--within my jurisdiction--for one's sins in a former
state.--No, you little dovelings"--she turned to a pair of
finches on the greensward near her, who were lingering, and
gazing up into her face with hungry, expectant eyes--"I have no
more. I have given you my all." And she stretched out her
open hands, palms downwards, to convince them.

"The sparrows got nothing; and the goldfinches, who got 'your
all,' grumble because you gave so little," said Peter, sadly.
"That is what comes of interfering with the laws of Nature."
And then, as the two birds flew away, "See the dark, doubtful,
reproachful glances with which they cover you."

"You think they are ungrateful?" she said. "No--listen."

She held up a finger.

For, at that moment, on the branch of an acacia, just over her
head, a goldfinch began to sing--his thin, sweet, crystalline
trill of song.

"Do you call that grumbling?" she asked.