210 VIOLENT WOOING. 



a cat's purr. After singing this several times, 

 and being slighted by her leaving the cage, he 

 laid his crest flat down, muttered something so 

 low that it could not be noted, and looked 

 very much put out. Soon, however, he shook 

 his feathers violently, flung himself at her, and 

 she dodged, as before. When both happened 

 to be for a moment in their own cages, the door 

 was suddenly closed between, and each had his 

 own, as at first. Madam was delighted, but 

 the cardinal resented it ; he tried to remove 

 the obnoxious barrier, pecked at it, shook it, 

 and could not be reconciled. He grew hungry 

 and was obliged to eat, but between every two 

 seeds he returned to struggle with the bars that 

 kept him from her. Meanwhile Virginia had 

 apparently forgotten all about him, eating and 

 making her toilet for the night, as cheerful as 

 usual. 



The next morning, the outside doors of the 

 two cages were opened, and both birds at once 

 came out into the room. The cardinal, not yet 

 over his tiff of the evening before, took wing 

 for the trees outside the windows, and brought 

 up, of course, against the glass. He was 

 greatly disappointed. He alighted on top of 

 the lower sash, tested, examined, and tried to 

 solve the mystery. Virginia, too, tried to go 

 through the pane, but learned in one lesson that 



