l, and she
called constantly, looking about this way and that, as if seeking some
one. After a while a male goldfinch appeared on the next tree, but he
did not act in the least as if invited by her call. He seemed merely to
be interested as any bird would be by her evident excitement. He watched
her calmly, but did not offer to follow when at last she flew.

Time, true to his reputation, was hurrying away even these sweet summer
days, and still the love affairs of our little beauties seemed no nearer
settlement than at first. In the opinion of impatient observers, their
wooing was as long drawn out as that of Augustus and Araminta in an
old-fashioned three-volume novel. Their manners, too, ludicrously
suggested the behavior of the bigger pair; first he would follow her
about, sing to her, parade himself, and show off; then she coquetted,
and charmed him with her bewitching and altogether indescribable call,
"sw-e-e-t." Then they were off in a whirl of excitement together,
flitting hither and thither, singing and dancing through the air, life
showing its rosiest hue.

All things come to an end--in time. By the middle of the month the
ecstasies of goldfinch youth were toned down, and the presence of dainty
nests here and there proved that madam at least had settled to work,
making preparation for her long, patient brooding.

The tall grass in the meadow in front of the house was about this time
laid low; nodding daisies,--white and yellow,--plumy meadow-grass and
plain timothy, devil's paintbrush and soft purple grass flowers, alike
lay in long rows dying on the ground. Delighted at last to possess the
places so long tabooed to us by the heavy crop, my comrade and I went
out the next morning on discoveries bent. The nook in which we rested
after our walk--she on the fresh sweet hay in the broad sunshine, and I
in the shade close by--offered a rare combination of seclusion with
perfect security. It was within call from the veranda, yet completely
hidden from it by a dense clump of evergreens.

We had hardly settled ourselves when we noticed three lively goldfinches
frolicking about the top of a tall maple-tree not far off. While we idly
speculated about them, wondering if they had no mates, and if the
goldfinches were not going to build this year, the eyes of my friend,
who was lying on the ground, fell upon the nest. It was near the end of
a lower branch of the maple, ten or twelve feet from the ground, and the
little