CARDINAL: MY FIRST CAGED BIRD 17 



at the parsonage had attracted mc? Well, our friend 

 the clergyman, she went on to say, had gone back to 

 his own country and would never return. His wife, 

 who was a very gentle, sweet woman, had been my 

 mother's dearest friend, so tliat she could hardly speak 

 of her loss without tears. Before going away he dis- 

 tributed his birds among his closest friends. He was 

 anxious that every bird should have an owner who 

 would love it as much as he had loved it himself and 

 tend it as carefully; and remembering how he had ob- 

 served me day after day watching the cardinal, he 

 thought that he could not leave it in better hands than 

 mine. And here was the bird in its big cage ! 



The cardinal was mine ! How could I believe it, even 

 when I pulled the shawl off and saw the beautiful 

 creature once more and heard the loud note! The gift 

 of that bird from the stern ice-cold man who had looked 

 at me as if he hated me, even as I had certainly hated 

 him, now seemed the most wonderful thing which had 

 ever happened in the world. 



It was a blissful time for me during that late winter 

 season, when I lived for the bird ; then, as the days 

 grew longer and brighter with the return of the sun, I 

 was happier every day to see my cardinal's increasing 

 delight in his new surroundings. It was certainly a great 

 and marvellous change for him. The cardinals are taken 

 as fledgelings from the nests in forests on the upper 

 waters of the Plata river, and reared by hand by the 

 natives, then sent down to the bird-dealers in Buenos 

 Ayres; so that my bird had practically known only a 



