The White Lily. 29

 

by moonlight the night before, and it would be no
wonder if Pearl were weary.

The mouse told the lily all about it.

He had not been invited himself—for birds were
rather exclusive people, and never had been known
to get on well with mice—but he knew that Pearl
had had a great success.

It had been a lovely wedding; goldfinches and
love-birds, two and two, for bridesmaids, in the most
lovely dresses ever seen, and two handsome wood-
peckers for best men.

The glowworms had carried the lamps and the fire-
flies all the candles, of which there had been hundreds
and thousands—never such a blaze seen before.

The nightingales had sung the marriage hymn, and
the thrushes the wedding march when the affair was
all over; but the mouse swore that, if his opinion
had been asked, Pearl’s voice, singing and laughing
through the woods, was far more beautiful than
anything that birds could do.

But then no one had asked the mouse’s opinion ;