` Poor little creature ! ' said the field-mouse , for she was a kind-hearted old thing at the bottom . ` Come into my warm room and have some dinner with me . ' As Thumbelina pleased her , she said : ` As far as I am concerned you may spend the winter with me ; but you must keep my room clean and tidy , and tell me stories , for I like that very much . ' And Thumbelina did all that the kind old field-mouse asked , and did it remarkably well too . ` Now I am expecting a visitor , ' said the field-mouse ; ` my neighbour comes to call on me once a week . He is in better circumstances than I am , has great , big rooms , and wears a fine black-velvet coat . If you could only marry him , you would be well provided for . But he is blind . You must tell him all the prettiest stories you know . ' But Thumbelina did not trouble her head about him , for he was only a mole . He came and paid them a visit in his black-velvet coat . ` He is so rich and so accomplished , ' the field-mouse told her . ` His house is twenty times larger than mine ; he possesses great knowledge , but he can not bear the sun and the beautiful flowers , and speaks slightingly of them , for he has never seen them . ' Thumbelina had to sing to him , so she sang ` Lady-bird , lady-bird , fly away home ! ' and other songs so prettily that the mole fell in love with her ; but he did not say anything , he was a very cautious man . A short time before he had dug a long passage through the ground from his own house to that of his neighbour ; in this he gave the field-mouse and Thumbelina permission to walk as often as they liked . But he begged them not to be afraid of the dead bird that lay in the passage : it was a real bird with beak and feathers , and must have died a little time ago , and now laid buried just where he had made his tunnel . The mole took a piece of rotten wood in his mouth , for that glows like fire in the dark , and went in front , lighting them through the long dark passage . When they came to the place where the dead bird lay , the mole put his broad nose against the ceiling and pushed a hole through , so that the daylight could shine down .
In the middle XXXXX the path lay a dead swallow , his pretty wings pressed close to his sides , his claws and head drawn under his feathers ; the poor bird had evidently died of cold .
If against as at before from into of than through