CHAPTER XII. 
MY wife's story OF HER PET CAT-BIRD, " GENERAL BEM." 
Two years ago we were residing in C . We liad very few 
friends near us, and sometimes the days seemed very dreary 
and long to us, for our pet Brownie had been dead many 
months, and we had said we could never have another such 
pet ; to lose him had grieved us too much, and we would not 
have our hearts so nearly broken again. 
Still we could not but admire the taste of our new ac- 
quaintance, W , who kept his bachelor establishment 
solely for the accommodation of pet song-birds, and that his 
own love and genius for music might be nourished by this 
association of all our most charming songsters. We spent 
many an hour in his " bird rooms," listening to the gay mim- 
icry of mocking birds, the clear, musical piping of his English 
black birds, and the loud, enchanting whistle of the cardinal 
birds, carrying us dreamily deep into the shadow of wild- 
woods, where other sounds faded from the ear, and all our 
senses merged towards one centre, where gleamed the glow- 
ing breast of the cardinal bird, lifted above the bare branches, 
which stood gauntly out from the green, embosoming leaves 
which would have shut him from the sunlight had he de- 
scended. 
The lark leaping upward, chaunted his song with a sad- 
dened tone that made us weep, while we felt how even the 
presence of those gay companions was no compensation for 
the clear sky, which had filled his eye with such liquid light, 
