They promised to bear the sight as well as they could.
When the old ones were seated in the tree, "It is time," said the father, "to take our nestlings abroad. You see, my love, how very timorous they are; and if we do not use them a little to the world, they will never be able to shift for themselves." "Very true," replied the mother; "they are now well fledged, and therefore, if you please, we will take them out tomorrow; but prepare them for it." "One of the best preparatives," answered her mate, "will be to leave them by themselves a little; therefore we will now take a flight together, and then go back." The mother complied, but she longed to be with her dear family.
When they stopped a little to rest on a tree, "Last year," said the hen redbreast, "it was my misfortune to be deprived of my nestlings by some cruel boys, before they were quite fledged, and it is that which makes me so timid now, that I do not feel comfortable when I am away from them."
"A calamity of the same kind befell me," replied the father; "I never shall forget it. I had been taking a flight in the woods in order to procure some nice morsels for one of my nestlings; when I returned to the place in which I had imprudently built.
