e brindled cat that, kept back from
its prey by our unwelcome neighborhood, still remained watchful, a few
paces off, stirring its tail gently backwards and forwards, and with
that stealthy look in its round eyes, dulled by the sun,--half fierce,
half frightened,--which belongs to its tribe when man comes between the
devourer and the victim.

"I do see," said I; "but a passing footstep has saved the bird!"

"Stop!" said Vivian, laying my hand on his own, and with his old bitter
smile on his lip,--"stop! Do you think it mercy to save the bird? What
from; and what for? From a natural enemy,--from a short pang and a quick
death? Fie! is not that better than slow starvation,--or, if you take
more heed of it, than the prison-bars of a cage? You cannot restore the
nest, you cannot recall the parent. Be wiser in your mercy,--leave the
bird to its gentlest fate."

I looked hard on Vivian: the lip had lost the bitter smile. He rose and
turned away. I sought to take up the poor bird; but it did not know its
friends, and ran from me, chirping piteously,--ran towards the very
jaws of the grim enemy. I was only just in time to scare away the beast,
which sprang up a tree and glared down through the hanging boughs. Then
I followed the bird, and as I followed, I heard, not knowing at first
whence the sound came, a short, quick, tremulous note. Was it near, was
it far? From the earth, in the sky? Poor parent bird, like parent-love,
it seemed now far and now near; now on earth, now in sky!

And at last, quick and sudden, as if born of the space, lo, the little
wings hovered over me!

The young bird halted, and I also.

"Come," said I, "ye have found each other at last,--settle it between
you!"

I went back to the outcast.

CHAPTER II.

Pisistratus.--"How came you to know we had stayed in the town?"

Vivian.--"Do you think I could remain where you left me? I wandered out,
wandered hither. Passing at dawn through yon streets, I saw the hostlers
loitering by the gates of the yard, overheard them talk, and so knew you
were all at the inn,--all!" He sighed heavily.

Pisistratus.--"Your poor father is very ill. Oh, cousin, how could you
fling from you so much love?"

Vivian.--"Love! his! my father's!"

Pisistratus.--"Do you really not believe, then, that your father loved
you?"

Vivian.--"If I had believed it, I had never left him. All the gold of
the Indies had never bribed me to leave my mother."

Pisistratus.--"Th