"Well, every one flies in his own fashion," said the papa stork."The swans fly in an oblique line; the cranes, in the form of atriangle; and the plovers, in a curved line like a snake."
  "Don't talk about snakes while we are flying up here," saidstork-mamma. "It puts ideas into the children's heads that can notbe realized."
  "Are those the high mountains I have heard spoken of?" askedHelga, in the swan's plumage.
  "They are storm-clouds driving along beneath us," replied hermother.
  "What are yonder white clouds that rise so high?" again inquiredHelga.
  "Those are mountains covered with perpetual snows, that you seeyonder," said her mother. And then they flew across the Alps towardsthe blue Mediterranean.
  "Africa's land! Egyptia's strand!" sang the daughter of theNile, in her swan's plumage, as from the upper air she caught sight ofher native land, a narrow, golden, wavy strip on the shores of theNile; the other birds espied it also and hastened their flight.
  "I can smell the Nile mud and the wet frogs," said thestork-mamma, "and I begin to feel quite hungry. Yes, now you shalltaste something nice, and you will see the marabout bird, and theibis, and the crane. They all belong to our family, but they are notnearly so handsome as we are. They give themselves great airs,especially the ibis. The Egyptians have spoilt him. They make amummy of him, and stuff him with spices. I would rather be stuffedwith live frogs, and so would you, and so you shall. Better havesomething in your inside while you are alive, than to be made a paradeof after you are dead. That is my opinion, and I am always right."
  "The storks are come," was said in the great house on the banks ofthe Nile, where the lord lay in the hall on his downy cushions,covered with a leopard skin, scarcely alive, yet not dead, waiting andhoping for the lotus-flower from the deep moorland in the far north.Relatives and servants were standing by his couch, when the twobeautiful swans who had come with the storks flew into the hall.They threw off their soft white plumage, and two lovely female formsapproached the pale, sick old man, and threw back their long hair, andwhen Helga bent over her grandfather, redness came back to his cheeks,his eyes brightened, and life returned to his benumbed limbs. Theold man rose up with health and energy renewed; daughter andgrandchild welcomed him as joyfully as if with a morning greetingafter a long and troubled dream.
  Joy reigned through the whole house, as well as in the stork'snest; although there the chief cause was really the good food,especially the quantities of frogs, which seemed to spring out ofthe ground in swarms.
  Then the learned men hastened to note down, in flyingcharacters, the story of the two princesses, and spoke of thearrival of the health-giving flower as a mighty event, which hadbeen a blessing to the house and the land. Meanwhile, the stork-papatold the story to his family in his own way; but not till they hadeaten and were satisfied; otherwise they would have had something elseto do than to listen to stories.
  "Well," said the stork-mamma, when she had heard it, "you willbe made something of at last; I suppose they can do nothing less."
  "What could I be made?" said stork-papa; "what have I done?-just nothing."
  "You have done more than all the rest," she replied. "But foryou and the youngsters the two young princesses would never haveseen Egypt again, and the recovery of the old man would not havebeen effected. You will become something. They must certainly give youa doctor's hood, and our young ones will inherit it, and theirchildren after them, and so on. You already look like an Egyptiandoctor, at least in my eyes."
  "I cannot quite remember the words I heard when I listened onthe roof," said stork-papa, while relating the story to his family;"all I know is, that what the wise men said was so complicated andso learned, that they received not only rank, but presents; even thehead cook at the great house was honored with a mark of distinction,most likely for the soup."
  "And what did you receive?"