80 
BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 
out again, and then at last he became silent alto- 
gether, his voice overpowered by hers. Girl and 
bird were not five yards apart. 
It greatly surprised me to hear her singing, for 
it was eleven o'clock, when all the village children 
were away at the National school, a time of day 
when, so far as human sounds were concerned, 
there reigned an almost unbroken silence. But 
very soon I recalled the fact that this was a very 
lazy child, and concluded that she had coaxed her 
mother into sending an excuse for keeping her at 
home, and so had kept her liberty on this beautiful 
morning. About two minutes' walk from the 
cottage, at the side of the crooked road running 
through the village, there was a group of very 
ancient pollarded elm trees with hollow trunks, 
and behind them an open space, a pleasant green 
slope, where some of the village children used to 
go every day to play on the grass. Here I used 
to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark chestnut 
hair loosed and scattered on the sward, her arms 
stretched out, her eyes nearly closed, basking in 
the sun, as happy as some heat-loving wild animal. 
No, it was not strange that she had not gone to 
school with the others, when her disposition was 
remembered, but most strange to hear a voice 
of such quality in a spot where nature was rich 
^nd lovely, and only man was, if not vile, at 
