XXV. 



A PLUM-TREE ROMANCE. 



IT was just after the catastrophe of the last 

 chapter when a pair of goldfinches, whose pretty 

 pastoral I hoped to watch, had been robbed and 

 driven from their home in a maple -tree that the 

 plum-tree romance began. Grieving for their 

 sorrow as well as for my loss, I turned my steps 

 toward the farmhouse, intending to devote part 

 of the day to the baby crows, who were enliven- 

 ing the pasture with their droll cries and droller 

 actions. But the crow family had the pasture 

 to themselves that morning, for in passing 

 through the orchard, looking, as always, for in- 

 dications of feathered life, I suddenly saw a new 

 nest in the top of a plum-tree, and my spirits 

 rose instantly when I noticed that the busy little 

 architect, at that moment working upon it, was 

 a goldfinch. 



What an unfortunate place she had chosen, 

 was my first thought. A young tree, a mere 

 sapling, not more than eight feet high, close 

 beside the regular farm road, where men, and 

 worse, two nest-robbing boys, passed forty times 



