228 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



and grieved at the spectacle, what a poor return you 

 are making me ! How badly this temper fits you ! — 

 how unlike your gentle twittering this new sharpness 

 in your voice which wounds me ! But I know the 

 cause too well ! Fear not, dear bird, to alienate my 

 love — that I shall forget in this your rebellious moment 

 the charm that made you precious, and charge you 

 with ingratitude and in anger and disdain thrust you 

 from my sight. For what avails my solicitude and 

 affection — what does it matter that with my own hands 

 I supply you with food and drink and a hundred 

 delicate morsels besides ; that with my fingers I 

 tenderly caress you ; that I kiss you with my lips ? 

 It is nothing that you are dear to me, that my chief 

 delight is in listening to your sweet lively trills and 

 twitterings, since I am but your gaoler who holds you 

 from that free air which is your home and the sweet 

 mate you would be with ! No, you cannot be glad ; 

 nor is it possible you should not fear the hand that 

 ministers to your wants, since it is the same hand 

 that has cruelly hurt you and may hurt you again 

 with a yet closer, more barbarous confinement. 



Alas, I know your pain, for I too am a captive and 

 lament my destiny, and though the bonds that hold me 

 are woven with flowers I feel their weight and they 

 wound me none the less. Left an orphan early in 

 life, it was my fate to leave my home before complet- 

 ing my seventeenth year, at the will of others, to be a 

 wife. He who took me was amiable and more than 

 kind to me. Like a brother, a friend, a passionate 



