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 Iwas 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 were 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 
