r so before, soon after Juste Duvarney came from Montreal, he
brought in one day from hunting a young live hawk, and put it in a cage.
When I came the next morning, Alixe met me, and asked me to see what
he had brought. There, beside the kitchen door, overhung with
morning-glories and flanked by hollyhocks, was a large green cage, and
in it the gray-brown hawk. "Poor thing, poor prisoned thing!" she said.
"Look how strange and hunted it seems! See how its feathers stir! And
those flashing, watchful eyes, they seem to read through you, and to
say, 'Who are you? What do you want with me? Your world is not my world;
your air is not my air; your homes are holes, and mine hangs high up
between you and God. Who are you? Why do you pen me? You have shut me in
that I may not travel, not even die out in the open world. All the world
is mine; yours is only a stolen field. Who are you? What do you want
with me? There is a fire within my head, it eats to my eyes, and I burn
away. What do you want with me?'"

She did not speak these words all at once as I have written them here,
but little by little, as we stood there beside the cage. Yet, as she
talked with me, her mind was on the bird, her fingers running up and
down the cage bars soothingly, her voice now and again interjecting soft
reflections and exclamations.

"Shall I set it free?" I asked her.

She turned upon me and replied, "Ah, monsieur, I hoped you
would--without my asking. You are a prisoner too," she added; "one
captive should feel for another."

"And the freeman for both," I answered meaningly, as I softly opened the
cage.

She did not drop her eyes, but raised them shining honestly and frankly
to mine, and said, "I wished you to think that."

Opening the cage door wide, I called the little captive to freedom.
But while we stood close by it would not stir, and the look in its eyes
became wilder. I moved away, and Alixe followed me. Standing beside
an old well we waited and watched. Presently the hawk dropped from the
perch, hopped to the door, then with a wild spring was gone, up, up, up,
and was away over the maple woods beyond, lost in the sun and the good
air.

I know not quite why I dwell on this scene, save that it throws some
little light upon her nature, and shows how simple and yet deep she was
in soul, and what was the fashion of our friendship. But I can perhaps
give a deeper insight of her character if I here set down the substance
of a letter writ