"Hello, Peter Rabbit! What are you doing way up here, and what are you
looking so mournful about?"

Peter gave a great start of pleased surprise. That was the first
friendly voice he had heard for days and days.

"Hello yourself, Tommy Tit!" shouted Peter joyously. "My, my, my, but I
am glad to see you! But what are you doing up here in the Old Pasture
yourself?"

Tommy Tit the Chickadee hung head down from the tip of a slender branch
of a maple-tree and winked a saucy bright eye at Peter. "I've got a
secret up here," he said.

Now there is nothing in the world Peter Rabbit loves more than a secret.
But he cannot keep one to save him. No, Sir, Peter Rabbit can no more
keep a secret than he can fly. He means to. His intentions are the very
best in the world, but--

Alas! alack! poor Peter's tongue Is very, very loosely hung. And so,
because he MUST talk and WILL talk every chance he gets, he cannot keep
a secret. People who talk too much never can.

"What is your secret?" asked Peter eagerly.

Tommy Tit looked down at Peter, and his sharp little eyes twinkled.
"It's a nest with six of the dearest little babies in the world in it,"
he replied.

"Oh, how lovely!" cried Peter. "Where is it, Tommy Tit?"