X. 



THE CARDINAL'S NEST. 



WHILE I had been studying four o'clock man- 

 ners, grave and gay, other things had happened. 

 Most delightful, perhaps, was my acquaintance 

 with a cardinal family at home. From the first 

 I had looked for a nest, and had suffered two or 

 three disappointments. One pair flaunted their 

 intentions by appearing on a tree before my 

 window, " tsipping " with all their might ; she 

 with her beak full of hay from the lawn below ; 

 he, eager and devoted, assisting by his presence. 

 The important and consequential manner of a 

 bird with building material in mouth is amus- 

 ing. She has no doubt that what she is about 

 to do is the very most momentous fact in the 

 " Sublime Now" (as some college youth has it). 

 Of course I dropped everything and tried to 

 follow the pair, at a distance great enough not 

 to disturb them, yet to keep in sight at least the 

 direction they took, for they are shy birds, and 

 do not like to be spied upon. But I could not 

 have gauged my distance properly ; for, though 

 I thought I knew the exact cedar-tree she had 



