A MONTH'S MUSIC. 285 



cuit round me he flew into a low bush and pro- 

 ceeded to dress his feathers listlessly. Probably 

 what I had overheard was nothing more than a 

 rehearsal. Within a week or two he would need 

 to do his very best in winning the fair one of 

 his choice, and for that supreme moment he had 

 already put himself in training. The wise- 

 hearted and obliging little beau ! I must have 

 been the veriest churl not to wish him his pick 

 of all the feminine wagtails in the wood. As 

 for the pink anemones, they had done me a 

 double kindness, in requital for which I could 

 only carry them to the city, where, in their 

 modesty, they would have blushed to a down- 

 right crimson had they been conscious of one- 

 half the admiration which their loveliness called, 

 forth. 



Before the end of the month (it was on the 

 morning of the 18th) I once more heard the 

 wagtail's song from the ground. This time the 

 affair was anything but a rehearsal. There" 

 were two birds, a lover and his lass, and 

 the wooing waxed fast and furious. For that 

 matter, it looked not so much like love-making 

 as like an aggravated case of assault and battery. 

 But, as I say, the male was warbling, and not 

 improbably (so strange are the ways of the 

 world), if he had been a whit less pugnacious in 

 his addresses, his lady-love, who was plainly well 



