e intelligent and more
robust: disciplined by it, he seems to mount higher on the ladder of
creation, while those more favored by nature remain on the step nearest
to the brutes.

I made these reflections while looking at the bird, whose instinct seemed
to have become more acute since she had been occupied in work. At last
the nest was finished; she set up her household there, and I followed her
through all the phases of her new existence.

When she had sat on the eggs, and the young ones were hatched, she fed
them with the most attentive care. The corner of my window had become a
stage of moral action, which fathers and mothers might come to take
lessons from. The little ones soon became large, and this morning I have
seen them take their first flight. One of them, weaker than the others,
was not able to clear the edge of the roof, and fell into the gutter. I
caught him with some difficulty, and placed him again on the tile in
front of his house, but the mother has not noticed him. Once freed from
the cares of a family, she has resumed her wandering life among the trees
and along the roofs. In vain I have kept away from my window, to take
from her every excuse for fear; in vain the feeble little bird has called
to her with plaintive cries; his bad mother has passed by, singing and
fluttering with a thousand airs and graces. Once only the father came
near; he looked at his offspring with contempt, and then disappeared,
never to return!

I crumbled some bread before the little orphan, but he did not know how
to peck it with his bill. I tried to catch him, but he escaped into the
forsaken nest. What will become of him there, if his mother does not come
back!

August 15th, six o'clock.--This morning, on opening my window, I found
the little bird dying upon the tiles; his wounds showed me that he had
been driven from the nest by his unworthy mother. I tried in vain to warm
him again with my breath; I felt the last pulsations of life; his eyes
were already closed, and his wings hung down! I placed him on the roof in
a ray of sunshine, and I closed my window. The struggle of life against
death has always something gloomy in it: it is a warning to us.

Happily I hear some one in the passage; without doubt it is my old
neighbor; his conversation will distract my thoughts.

It was my portress. Excellent woman! She wished me to read a letter from
her son the sailor, and begged me to answer it for her.

I kept it, to copy