` You shall not be called Thumbelina ! ' said the spirit of the flower to her ; ` that is an ugly name , and you are much too pretty for that . We will call you May Blossom . ' ` Farewell , farewell ! ' said the little swallow with a heavy heart , and flew away to farther lands , far , far away , right back to Denmark . There he had a little nest above a window , where his wife lived , who can tell fairy-stories . ` Tweet , tweet ! ' he sang to her . And that is the way we learnt the whole story . THE NIGHTINGALE In China , as I daresay you know , the Emperor is a Chinaman , and all his courtiers are also Chinamen . The story I am going to tell you happened many years ago , but it is worth while for you to listen to it , before it is forgotten . The Emperor 's Palace was the most splendid in the world , all made of priceless porcelain , but so brittle and delicate that you had to take great care how you touched it . In the garden were the most beautiful flowers , and on the loveliest of them were tied silver bells which tinkled , so that if you passed you could not help looking at the flowers . Everything in the Emperor 's garden was admirably arranged with a view to effect ; and the garden was so large that even the gardener himself did not know where it ended . If you ever got beyond it , you came to a stately forest with great trees and deep lakes in it . The forest sloped down to the sea , which was a clear blue . Large ships could sail under the boughs of the trees , and in these trees there lived a Nightingale . She sang so beautifully that even the poor fisherman who had so much to do stood and listened when he came at night to cast his nets . ` How beautiful it is ! ' he said ; but he had to attend to his work , and forgot about the bird .
But when she sang the next night and the fisherman XXXXX there again , he said the same thing , ` How beautiful it is ! '
Blossom attend call came learnt lived said sloped take tinkled