iched ourselves
with the beautiful picture of bird ways, for like many another fair
promise of the summer it came to naught.

We had not startled her, she had not observed us at all, nor been in the
least degree hindered in her work by our silent presence, twenty feet
away and half hidden by her leafy screen. But the next day she was not
there. After we had waited half an hour, my friend could no longer
resist a siren voice that had lured us for days (and was never traced
home, by the way). I offered to wait for the little blue while she
sought her charmer.

We were near the edge of the woods, and she was obliged to pass through
part of a pasture where sheep were kept. Her one terror about her big
dog was that he should take to making himself disagreeable among sheep,
when she knew his days would be numbered, so she told him to stay with
me. He had risen when she started, and he looked a little dubious, but
sat down again, and she went away.

He watched her so long as she could be seen and then turned to me for
comfort. He came close and laid his big head on my lap to be petted. I
patted his head and praised him a while, and then wished to be relieved.
But flattery was sweet to his ears, and the touch of a hand to his
brow,--he declined to be put away; on the contrary he demanded constant
repetition of the agreeable sensations. If I stopped, he laid his heavy
head across my arm, in a way most uncomfortable to one not accustomed to
dogs. These methods not availing, he sat up close beside me, when he
came nearly to my shoulder and leaned heavily against me, his head
resting against my arm in a most sentimental attitude.

At last finding that I would not be coaxed or forced into devoting
myself wholly to his entertainment, he rose with dignity, and walked off
in the direction his mistress had gone, paying no more attention to my
commands or my coaxings than if I did not exist. If I would not do what
he wished, and pay the price of his society, he would not do what I
asked. I was, therefore, left alone.

I was perfectly quiet. My dress was a dull woods tint, carefully
selected to be inconspicuous, and I was motionless. No little dame
appeared, but I soon became aware of the pleasing sound of the blue
himself. It drew nearer, and suddenly ceased. Cautiously, without
moving, I looked up. My eyes fell upon the little beauty peering down
upon me. I scarcely breathed while he came nearer, at last directly over
my head, sil