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“I really don’t understand you, ma’am,” said poor Dr. Bullfrog.

“What! you haven’t heard of a committee that is going to call on you, to ask you to resign the care of the parish music?”

“Madam,” said Dr. Bullfrog, with all that energy of tone for which he was remarkable, “I don’t believe it,–I CAN’T believe it. You must have made a mistake.”

“I mistake! No, no, my good friend; I never make mistakes. What I know, I know certainly. Wasn’t it I that said I knew there was an engagement between Tim Chipmunk and Nancy Nibble, who are married this very day? I knew that thing six weeks before any bird or beast in our parts; and I can tell you, you are going to be scandalously and ungratefully treated, Dr. Bullfrog.”

“Bless me, we shall all be ruined!” said Mrs. Bullfrog; “my poor husband–“

“Oh, as to that, if you take things in time, and listen to my advice,” said Mother Magpie, “we may yet pull you through. You must alter your style a little,–adapt it to modern times. Everybody now is a little touched with the operatic fever, and there’s Tommy Oriole has been to New Orleans and brought back a touch of the artistic. If you would try his style a little,–something Tyrolean, you see.”

“Dear madam, consider my voice. I never could hit the high notes.”

“How do you know? It’s all practice; Tommy Oriole says so. Just try the scales. As to your voice, your manner of living has a great deal to do with it. I always did tell you that your passion for water injured your singing. Suppose Tommy Oriole should sit half his days up to his hips in water, as you do,–his voice would be as hoarse and rough as yours. Come up on the bank and learn to perch, as we birds do. We are the true musical race.”

And so poor Mr. Bullfrog was persuaded to forego his pleasant little cottage under the cat-tails, where his green spectacles and honest round back had excited, even in the minds of the boys, sentiments of respect and compassion. He came up into the garden, and established himself under a burdock, and began to practise Italian scales.

The result was, that poor old Dr. Bullfrog, instead of being considered as a respectable old bore, got himself universally laughed at for aping fashionable manners. Every bird and beast in the forest had a gibe at him; and even old Parson Too-Whit thought it worth his while to make him a pastoral call, and admonish him about courses unbefitting his age and standing. As to Mother Magpie, you may be sure that she assured every one how sorry she was that dear old Dr. Bullfrog had made such a fool of himself; if he had taken her advice, he would have kept on respectably as a nice old Bullfrog should.

But the tragedy for the poor old music-teacher grew even more melancholy in its termination; for one day, as he was sitting disconsolately under a currant-bush in the garden, practising his poor old notes in a quiet way, THUMP came a great blow of a hoe, which nearly broke his back.

“Hallo! what ugly beast have we got here?” said Tom Noakes, the gardener’s boy. “Here, here, Wasp, my boy.”

What a fright for a poor, quiet, old Bullfrog, as little wiry, wicked Wasp came at him, barking and yelping. He jumped with all his force sheer over a patch of bushes into the river, and swam back to his old home among the cat-tails. And always after that it was observable that he was very low-spirited, and took very dark views of life; but nothing made him so angry as any allusion to Mother Magpie, of whom, from that time, he never spoke except as OLD MOTHER MISCHIEF.