288 GRAY LADY AND THE BIRDS 
provider, and peacemaker for their lively and quarrel- 
some triplet. A fight is apparently as needful for the 
development of a young Cardinal as of an English school- 
boy, possibly due in both cases to a meat diet. 
Overfeeding was but temporary with our birds. On 
the 8th of August the migratory instinct prevailed over 
ease, indulgence, friendship, and the Cardinal with his 
brood left the house, where he had been so well enter- 
tained, to return no more. No more? Who shall say of 
any novel that it can have no sequel? Massachusetts may 
yet become the permanent home of the Kentucky Cardinal, 
the descendant to the third and fourth generation of Louis 
and his mate. 
— Eva GILBERT IvsEs, in Bird-Lore. 
As Gray Lady read the story of the Cardinal, the chil- 
dren, between listening to it and being intent on their 
work, forgot the Mockingbird in the window, upon whom 
the rays of the sun, that had gradually managed to pierce 
the clouds, were resting. 
As her mother finished and paused, Goldilocks, with a 
very slight gesture, directed their glance toward the window, 
where the Mockingbird, having completed his toilet and 
meal, perched, wings slightly raised and quivering, with 
half-closed eyes, murmuring a few broken snatches of song, 
half to himself and half as if in a dream, his head thrown 
back and, oh, such a human expression of longing in his 
attitude, that Gray Lady, without speaking, turned the 
leaves of her scrap-book slowly until she came to a place 
where the long line of prose shortened to verse, and then 
in a low but distinct voice she read : — 
