LINGERING LOVE AFFAIRS. 247 



wooing was several times noted. Hearing a 

 strange and unfamiliar cry, in a tone of distress, 

 I drew cautiously near, and found, on a low 

 branch, one of the goldfinch maidens, uttering 

 the plaintive notes, which, by the way, were 

 afterwards very common about the nests. She 

 held in her beak something which might be a 

 tiny green worm, or a bit of nesting material, 

 and she called constantly, looking about this 

 way and that, as if seeking some one. After a 

 while a male goldfinch appeared on the next tree, 

 but he did not act in the least as if invited by 

 her call. He seemed merely to be interested as 

 any bird would be by her evident excitement. 

 He watched her calmly, but did not offer to 

 follow when at last she flew. 



Time, true to his reputation, was hurrying 

 away even these sweet summer days, and still 

 the love affairs of our little beauties seemed no 

 nearer settlement than at first. In the opinion 

 of impatient observers, their wooing was as long 

 drawn out as that of Augustus and Araminta 

 in an old-fashioned three-volume novel. Their 

 manners, too, ludicrously suggested the beha- 

 vior of the bigger pair ; first he would follow her 

 about, sing to her, parade himself, and show off ; 

 then she coquetted, and charmed him with her 

 bewitching and altogether indescribable call, 

 "sw-e-e-t." Then they were off in a whirl of 



