y, meeting the
children with courteous smiles. "I see you've brought your kitten,
Edith."

"Yes, ma'am; will you please look at her wounds again?"

"They are pretty well healed, dear. I've never felt much concerned about
Zee's wounds. She makes believe half of her sufferings for the sake of
being petted."

"Does she, though? I'm so glad."

"Yes; that 'prize tail' will soon be waving as proudly as ever. But I
suppose you all came to see the canary. Mag, you naughty girl," she
added, turning to the magpie, "hide under the bed. They didn't come to
see you. Here, Job, you are the one that's wanted."

Little Job, the canary, was standing on the rug. He came forward now to
greet his visitors, putting out a foot to feel his way, like a blind
man with a cane. Then he began to sing joyously.

"Don't you call that good music?" asked his mistress, knitting as she
spoke. "He came from Germany; there's where you get the best singers.
Some canaries won't sing before company and some won't sing alone; they
are fussy,--I call it _pernickitty_. Why, I had one with a voice like a
flute; but I happened to buy some new wall-paper, and she didn't like
the looks of it, and after that she never would sing a note."

"Are you in earnest?" asked Kyzie.

"Yes, it's a fact. But Job never was pernickitty, bless his little
heart!"

She brought a tiny bell and let him take it in his claws.

"Now, I'll go out of the room, and you all keep still and see if he'll
ring to call me back."

She went, closing the door after her. No one spoke. Job moved his head
from side to side, and, apparently making up his little mind that he was
all alone, he shook the bell peal after peal. Presently his mistress
appeared. "Did you think mamma had gone and left you, Job darling? Mamma
can't stay away from her baby."

The cooing tone pleased the little creature, and he sang again even more
sweetly than before.

"Let me show you another of his tricks. You see this little gun? Well,
when he fires it off that will be the end of poor Job!"

The gun was about two inches long and as large around as a lead pencil.
Inside was a tiny spring; and when Job's claw touched the spring the gun
went off with a loud report. Job fell over at once as if shot and lay
perfectly still and stiff on the rug. Lucy screamed out:---

"Oh, I'm so sorry he is dead!"

But next moment he roused himself and sat up and shook his feathers as
if he relished the joke.

The children ha