er times until broken by careless
servants.

A conservatory had for years been one of my most pleasing desires.
Although I know little of them, I am fond of flowers, particularly of
those which others care for and which do not breed or abound in
creeping things. But the use to which I was ambitious to put my--or
our--conservatory was that of an aviary. I love all pet birds, and one
of my sweetest day dreams has been that which possessed me of a large
glass room or bower well stocked with canaries, linnets, bullfinches,
robins, wrens, Java sparrows, love birds, and paroquets. I have often
pictured to myself the delight I should experience in entering into
this heaven of song and in caressing these feathered pets, in feeding
them and in teaching them pretty tricks and games. I recall those
pleasant boyhood days when a pet crow, and a flock of pigeons, and two
baby hawks afforded me rapture and solicitude combined. Then followed
an experience with a matronly hen and her brood of chicks.

I am not ashamed to say that I loved these friends of my youth and that
I still reverence their memories. Nor am I ashamed to tell you that
for several years after I reached maturity a particular object of my
affections was a wee canary bird that sang sweet songs to me and played
daintily with my finger whenever I thrust it into the little rascal's
cage. Alice insists that I actually cried when that silly little
creature died; may be I did, for I am a very, very foolish fellow.

One of the things I have never been able to understand is why Alice,
with all her gentleness and tenderness, has so violent an antipathy to
bird and brute pets. Alice actually seems to dislike birds and dogs
with the same zeal with which I love them. At times--you will hardly
believe it--Alice has exhibited Neronian cruelty and hardness of heart.
I remember that on one occasion she caught a harmless, innocent little
blue mouse in the pantry. She fully intended to drown the helpless
creature--as if this world were not big enough for mice and men to live
and be happy in! I had great difficulty in rescuing the tiny rodent
from his captor, and I remember the satisfaction I had in giving him
his liberty under the kitchen porch of neighbor Rush's house next door.

At first Alice was kindly disposed toward the conservatory scheme, but
in an unguarded moment one day I chanced to breathe a suggestion that a
combination conservatory-bird cage would do very nice