120 PHILLIDA AND CORIDON. 



against the younger suitor. I fear they did. 

 Sometimes, too, I have queried whether young 

 birds (who none the less are of age to marry) 

 can be so very meek or so very dull as never to 

 rebel against the fashion that only the old fel- 

 lows shall dress handsomely ; and I have tried 

 in vain to imagine the mutterings, deep and 

 loud, which such a law would excite in certain 

 other quarters. It pains me to say it, but I 

 suspect that taxation without representation 

 would seem a small injustice, in comparison. 



Like these linnets in the exceptional interest 

 they excited were two large seabirds, who sud- 

 denly appeared circling about over the woods, 

 as I was taking a solitary walk on a Sunday 

 morning in April. One of them was closely 

 pursuing the other ; not as though he were try- 

 ing to overtake her, but rather as though he 

 were determined to keep her company. They 

 swept now this way, now that, — now lost to 

 sight, and now reappearing ; and once they 

 passed straight over my head, so that I heard 

 the whistling of their wings. Then they were 

 off, and I saw them no more. They came from 

 far, and by night they w^ere perhaps a hundred 

 leagues away. But I followed them with my 

 blessing, and to this day I feel toward them a 

 little as I suppose we all do toward a certain 

 few strangers whom we have met here and 



