44 
NATURE NOTES 
sitting on my dressing-table, and held one in each hand. First 
I kissed one little blue cap, then the other, and after making the 
two birds kiss I carried them into the garden and let them fly 
away.” 
“ Where they likely pecked each other’s eyes out if they 
were cock birds and it was mating time,” he answered, shrug- 
ging his stiff old shoulders and setting the little Blue Tit down 
on the counter beside its companion. Presently he dived for 
a ragged piece of paper and busied himself in another corner 
of the shop. The birds were no longer on the counter and the 
old man had suddenly become stern-looking, the horn spectacles 
giving him the appearance of an angry old ogre. I began to 
feel frightened, and this feeling was not lessened when, after a 
long interval, he pushed a very badly done-up parcel towards 
me, muttering some sort of imprecation. 
It was useless to mistake the meaning of the parcel, how- 
ever politic to feign ignorance of the muttered curses, so I boldly 
picked up the Blue Tits and turned to go. 
“ And you will not let me give you anything for them ? ” I 
was idiot enough to enquire as I reached the low doorway. 
The need to say something was imperative. Sympathy I felt 
would be cruel, a commonplace remark insulting at such a 
moment. I had hoped to combine in my farewell words appre- 
ciation of his sacrifice with sincere regret that I could never 
repay him for his precious gift. 
On my misguided head the storm burst, and I fell up the 
step leading from the shop into the street and took to my heels. 
But a stentorian voice recalled me before 1 could reach the 
turning into the High Street. 
“ He cannot part with them after all,” was the thought that 
flashed into my mind, and I hesitated to obey. Then sick with 
fear that the Blue Tits were to be wrenched from me, I slowly 
retraced my steps. Anything less ogre-like than the old dealer 
now appeared cannot well be imagined. He had aged ten years 
in my short flight down the sunny street, and stood in the 
doorway of the pretty old gabled house nervously fingering a 
large red pocket handkerchief w'ith which every now and then 
he wiped his forehead and hands. 
“Give them every bit of sunshine you can just these two — 
three months in the year,” he wliispered hoarsely ; “ and never 
part with them as long as you live, unless you must, and then 
only — but you know ” 
4 : * * * 
Yes, I know, but I do not understand. 
The “ two — three months of the year ” are over now, and 
the tits have taken up their abode in a long glass case among 
many other treasures, Roman plates, old rings, miniatures, coins. 
But when spring-time comes round again with her awakening 
touch, I shall unlock the glass case and place my pair of birds 
wliere the first rays of the warm life-giving sun can shine full 
upon them. Rachel. 
