lew beside her full of life and joy. He
lit on the side of a cockle stem, and on the instant caught sight of me.
Alas! he seemed suddenly turned to stone. He held onto that stalk as if
his little legs had been bars of iron and I a devouring monster. When he
had collected his wits enough to fly off, instead of the careless gay
flight with which he had come out through the open air, he timidly kept
low within the cockle field, making a circuitous way through the high
stalks.

He could be afraid of me if he liked, I thought,--for after a certain
amount of suspicion an innocent person gets resentful; at any rate, I
was going to see that nest. Creeping up cautiously when the mother bird
was away, so as not to scare her, and carefully parting the mallows, I
looked in. Yes, there it was, a beautiful little sage-green nest of old
grass laid in a coil. I felt as pleased as if having a right to share
the family happiness.

After that I watched the small worker gather material with new interest,
knowing where she was going to put it. She worked fast, but did not take
the first thing she found, by any means. With a flit of the wing she
went in nervous haste from cockle to cockle, looking eagerly about her.
Jumping down to the ground, she picked up a bit of grass, threw it down
dissatisfied, and turned away like a person looking for something. At
last she lit on the side of a thistle, and tweaking out a fibre flew
with it to the nest.

When the house was done, one morning in passing I leaned down from the
saddle, and through the weeds saw her brown wings as she sat on the
nest. A month after the first encounter with the father lazuli, I found
him looking at me around the corner of a cockle stalk, and in passing
back again caught him singing full tilt, though his bill was full of
insects! After we had turned our backs, I looked over my shoulder and
had the satisfaction of seeing him take his beakful to the nest. You
couldn't help admiring him, for though not a warrior who would snap his
bill over the head of an enemy of his home, he had a gallant holiday air
with his blue coat and merry song, and you felt sure his little brown
mate would get cheer and courage enough from his presence to make family
dangers appear less frightful. Even this casual acquaintance with the
little pair gave me a new and tender interest in all of their name I
might know in future.

While watching the lazulis from the sycamores, on looking up on a level