PATERNAL SEVERITY r5 



learning that it is an orphan as well as maimed, 

 and that it is utterly separated from all companion- 

 ship except mine. Fortunately it is not much 

 afraid of me ; and, with discretion, I can manage 

 to clear the sill of the other birds without 

 frightening it away, though it will look about 

 wonderingly for some time after they have taken 

 flight, and twist its head about with a queer 

 puzzled look, as if it were trying not only to see 

 but to think to put two and two together, in 

 fact. But I am horrified at that old bird ! Does 

 he think his child gets too many crumbs ? But I 

 hear the plaintive cry of my little cripple, and I 

 must take my mahlstick and defend it. 



June 18, 1882. 



Whether it is nature or civilisation that has 

 performed the cure, or both, I cannot say ; but I 

 can say with pleasure that the poor little chaffinch 

 has nearly recovered the use of its leg, and that its 

 father seems reconciled to it. But it has not been 

 easy for the maimed bird to get its living, and 

 without my constant crumbs and attention I doubt 

 whether it would have done it. Moreover it has 

 suffered loss. Its ways are feeble and timid, and 

 its colour considerably less brilliant than that of 

 other birds of the same age. 



This latter circumstance confirms me in the 



