of the bloom of her
cheeks and lips being plucked like roses in a hedgerow. She was precious
to my imagination, yet, for all her every-day reality, scarcely nearer
to my aspirations than Lady Edith Plantagenet or Ellen, Lady of the
Lake.

"I don't care," muttered Harry doggedly--"I don't care. I dare say he
means to marry her when he grows up, but I don't care."

"Floyd," called out Georgy, "can't you show me another bird's nest?"

Now I knew at least a hundred birds' nests in these woods. All Wednesday
afternoon I had nestled here in the thickets and watched the little
builders hopping from moss to bough and twig, and had learned all their
secrets. I knew that by the great rock just behind where she was sitting
was a ledge with shelving sides overhung with moss, and that there, so
cunningly wrought and hidden that none but a trained eye could ever have
discovered it, was an exquisite nest formed of lichens. Half ashamed of
disclosing such a sacred confidence, I led Georgy up to it. Last
Wednesday it was barely finished: now there were three eggs in it. It
was a wood-pewee's nest, and while I let her peep the mother-bird flew
toward us with a shrill pathetic cry.

"Hush, you horrid thing!" cried Georgy to the alarmed bird, that circled
about us with cries growing every moment more piercing.--"Is not that
perfectly sweet? I never saw anything prettier."

I had only consented that she should give one glance, and I now tried to
coax her away; but nothing would content her but to hold two of the eggs
in her hand, and while she held them her foot slipped and they fell to
the ground, and she trod upon them.

"Oh, Georgy!" I cried angrily, "that is too horribly careless of you: I
cannot forgive you."

"The idea!" she returned, laughing. "Do look at him, boys!--as white as
a ghost just because I broke those wretched eggs! Look at that furious
little bird! I declare it is ready to peck my eyes out! There, madam!
now you may go to work and lay some more eggs;" and she took the sole
remaining egg from the nest and flung it with wanton cruelty into the
thicket.

I was cut to the heart. Both Jack and Harry came up to me, but I shook
them off and sat down upon a fallen trunk, and would not say a word in
answer to their inquiries or consolations. Presently they wandered down
the woods together, and left me there alone. The owners of the despoiled
nest kept up a loud, emphatic chirping for a time, which drew all the
other bi