English and American song-birds

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

LIBRARY

OF THE

MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY

HE, 689
BEQUEST OF

WILLIAM McM. WOODWORTH.

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APR 14. 1917

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ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS.

THE charm of the songs of birds, like that
of a nation’s popular airs and hymns, is so
little a question of intrinsic musical excel-
lence and so largely a matter of association
and suggestion, or of subjective coloring
and reminiscence, that it is perhaps entirely
natural for every people to think their own
feathered songsters the best. What music
would there not be to the homesick Ameri-
can, in Europe, in the. simple »nd_plain-
tive note of our bluebird, c«~’ = dity of
our song-sparrow, or the honest -a.ol of our
robin; and what to. the Pedocas traveler in
this country, in #ie_burst of the blackcap, or
the red-breast, or’ the whistle of the merlin!
The relative merit of bird-songs can hardly
be settled dogmatically ; I suspect there is
very little of what we call music, or of what
could be noted on the musical scale, in even
the best of them; they are parts of nature,
and their power is in the degree in which they
speak to our experience.

When the Duke of Argyll, who is a lover
of the birds and a good ornithologist, was
in this country, he got the impression that our
song-birds were inferior to the British, and he
refers to others of his countrymen as of like
opinion. No wonder he thought our robin
inferior in power to the missal thrush, in variety
to the mavis, and in melody to the blackbird.
Robin did not and could not sing to his
ears the song he sings to ours. Then it is
very likely true that his Grace did not hear
the robin in the most opportune moment and
season, or when the contrast of his song
with the general silence and desolation of
nature is the most striking and impressive.
The nightingale needs to be heard at night,
the lark at dawn rising to meet the sun; and
robin, if you would know the magic of his
voice, should be heard in early spring, when,
as the sun is setting, he carols steadily for
ten or fifteen minutes, from the top of some
near tree. There is perhaps no other sound
in nature; patches of snow linger here and
there; the trees are naked and the earth is
cold and dead, and this contented, hopeful,
re-assuring, and withal musical strain, poured
out so freely and deliberately, fills the void
with the very breath and presence of the
spring. It isa simple strain, well suited to the
early season; there are no imtricacies in it,
but its honest cheer and directness, with its
slight plaintive tinge, like that of the sun

ze v

gilding the tree-tops, go straight to the heart.
‘The compass and variety of the robin’s powers
are not to be despised either. A German
who has great skill in the musical education
of birds told me what I was surprised to hear,
namely, that our robin surpasses the European
blackbird in capabilities of voice.

The Drkeyioes not mention by name all the
birds he neard while in this country. He was
evidently influenced in his opinion of them by
the fact that our common sandpiper ( Zo/anus
macularius) appeared to be a silent bird,
whereas its British cousin, the sandpiper of the
lakes and streams of the Scottish Highlands, is
very loquacious, and the “male bird has a con-
tinuous and most lively song.” Either the Duke
must have seen our bird in one of its silent
and meditative moods, or else in the wilds
of Canada, where his Grace speaks of having
seen it, the sandpiper is a more taciturn bird
than it is in the States. True, its call-notes
are not incessant, and it is not properly a song-
bird any more than the British species is, but
it has a very pretty and pleasing note as it
flits up and down our summer streams, or
runs along on their gray, pebbly, and bowlder-
strewn shallows. I often hear its calling and
piping at night during its spring migratings.
Indeed, we have no silent bird that I am
aware of, though our pretty cedar-bird has,
perhaps, the least voice of all. A lady writes
me that she has heard the humming-bird sing,
and says she is not to be put down, even if I
were to prove by the anatomy of the bird’s
vocal organs that a song was impossible to it.

Argyll says that though he was in the woods
and fields of Canada and of the States in the
richest moment of the spring, he heard little
of that burst of song which in England comes
from the blackcap, and the garden warbler,
and the white-throat, and the reed warbler,
and the common wren, and (locally) from the
nightingale. There is no lack of a burst of
song in this country (except in the remote
forest solitudes) during the nchest moment
of the spring, say from the rst to the 2oth of
May, and at times till near midsummer; more-
over, more bird-voices join in it, as I shall point
out, than in Britain; but it is probably more
fitful and intermittent, more confined to cer-
tain hours of the day, and probably proceeds
from throats less loud and vivacious than that
with which our distinguished critic was fa-
miliar. The ear hears best and easiest what

358 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS.

it has heard before. Properly to apprehend
and appreciate bird-songs, especially to dis-
entangle them from the confused murmur of
nature, requires more or ‘ess familiarity with
them. If the Duke had)passed 2 season with
us in some ove place in the country, in New
York or New England, he would probably
have modified his views about the silence of
our birds.

One season, early in May, I discovered an
English sky-lark in full song above a broad,
low meadow in the midst of a landscape
that possessed features attractive to a great
variety of our birds. Every morning for many
days I used to go and sit on the brow of a
low hill that commanded the field, or else
upon a gentle swell in the midst of the
meadow itself, and listen to catch the song of
the lark. The maze and tangle of bird-voices
and bird-choruses through which my ear
groped its way searching for the new song
can be imagined when I say that within hear-
ing there were from fifteen to twenty different
kinds of songsters, all more or less in full tune.
If their notes and calls could have been mate-
rialized and made as palpable to the eye as
they were tothe ear, I think they would have
veiled the landscape and darkened the day.
There were big songs and little songs, songs
from the trees, the bushes, the ground, the
air, warbles, trills, chants, musical calls and
squeals, etc. Near by in the foreground
were the cat-bird and the brown thrasher,
the former in the bushes, the latter on the
top of a hickory. These birds are related
to the mocking-bird, and may be called per-
formers; their songs area series of vocal feats,
like the exhibition of an acrobat; they throw
musical somersaults and turn and twist and
contort themselves in a very edifying manner,
with now and then a ventriloquial touch. The
cat-bird is the more shrill, supple, and fem-
inine; the thrasher the louder, richer,and more
audacious. The mate of the latter had a nest,
which J found in a field under the spread-
ing ground juniper. From several points
along the course of a bushy little creek
there came a song, or a melody of notes and
calls, that also put me out—the tipsy, hodge-
podge strain of the polyglot chat, a strong,
olive-backed, yellow-breasted, black-billed
bird, with a voice like that of a jay or acrow
that had been to school toa robin or an oriole
—a performer sure to arrest your ear and sure
to elude your eye. There is no bird so afraid
of being seen, or fonder of being heard.

The golden voice of the wood-thrush that
came to me from the border of the woods on
my right was no hinderance to the ear, it was
so serene, liquid, and, as it were, transparent :
the lark’s song has nothing in common with

it. Neither were the songs of the many bobo-
links in the meadow at all confusing—a brief
tinkle of silver bells in the grass while I was
listening for a sound like the sharp, continuous
hum and rush of silver wheels upon pebbles and
gravel. Certain notes of the red-shouldered
starlings in the alders and swamp maples near
by, the distant strong call of the great crested
fly-catcher, the jingle of the kingbird, the shrill,
metallic song of the savanna sparrow, and
the piercing call of the meadow lark, all stood
more or less in the way of the strain I was
listening for, because every one had a touch of
that burr or guttural hum of the lark’s song.
The ear had still other notes to contend with,
as the strong, bright warble of the tanager,
the richer and more melodious strain of the
rose-breasted grosbeak, the distant brief and
emphatic song of the chewink, the child-like
contented warble of the -red-eyed vireo, the
animated strain of the goldfinch, the softly
ringing notes of the bush-sparrow, the rapid,
circling, vivacious strain of the purple finch,
the gentle lullaby of the song-sparrow, the
pleasing “wichery,” “wichery” of the yel-
low-throat, the strong whistle of the oriole,
the loud call of the high-hole, the squeak and
chatter of swallows, etc. But when the lark
did rise in full song, it was easy to hear him
athwart all these various sounds, first, be-
cause of the sense of altitude his strain had,—
its skyward character,—and then because of its
loud, aspirated, penetrating, unceasing, jubi-
lant quality. It cut its way to the ear like
something: exceeding swift, sharp, and copi-
ous. It overtook and outran every other
sound ; it had an under-tone like the hum-
ming of multitudinous wheels and spindles.
Now and then some turn would start and set
off a new combination of shriller or of graver
notes, but all of the same precipitate, out-
rushing, and down-pouring character; not, on
the whole, a sweet or melodious song, but a
strong and blithe one.

The Duke is abundantly justified in saying
that we have no bird in this country, at least
east of the Mississippi, that can fill the place
of the sky-lark. Our high, wide, bright skies
seem his proper field, too. His song is a pure
ecstasy, untouched by any plaintiveness, or
pride, or mere hilarity—a well-spring of morn-
ing joy and blitheness set high above the
fields and downs. Its effect is well suggested
in this stanza of Wordsworth:

“Up with me, up with me, into the clouds!
For thy song, lark, is strong;

Up with me, up with me, into the clouds!
Singing, singing,

With all the heavens about thee ringing,
Lift me, guide me, till I find

That spot which seems so to.thy mind! ”’

Oui

ae

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS.

_ But judging from Gilbert White’s and Bar-
mngton’s lists, I should say that our bird-choir
was a larger one, and embraced more good
songsters, than the British.

White names twenty-two species of birds
that sing in England during the spring and
summer, including the swallow in the list. A
list of the spring and summer songsters, in New
York and New England, without naming any
that are, characteristically, wood birds, like the
hermit thrush and veery, the two wagtails, the
true warblers and the solitary vireo, or including
any of the birds that have musical call-notes,
and by some are denominated songsters, as
the bluebird, the.sandpiper, the swallow, the
red-shouldered starling, the pewee, the high-
hole, and others, would embrace more names,
though, perhaps, no songsters equal to the
lark and nightingale, to wit: the robin, the
cat-bird, the oriole, the orchard starling, the
song-sparrow, the wood-sparrow, the vesper
sparrow, the social sparrow, the purple finch,
the wood-thrush, the scarlet tanager, the
indigo-bird, the goldfinch, the bobolink, the
summer yellow-bird, the meadow lark, the
house-wren, the brown thrasher, the chewink,
the chat, the red-eyed vireo, the white-eyed
vireo, the Maryland yellow-throat, and the
rose-breasted grosbeak. Our bird-choir is far
richer in sparrow voices than the British.
There appear to be but two sparrows in that
country that sing, the hedge-sparrow and reed-
sparrow—both, according to Barrington, very
inferior songsters; the latter without mel-
lowness or plaintiveness, and with but little
sprightliness, or compass, and the former
evidently lower in the scale than either of
our birds. What a ditty is that of our song-
sparrow, rising from the garden-fence or the
road-side so early in March, so prophetic
and touching, with endless variations and
pretty trilling effects; or the song of the ves-
per sparrow, full of the repose and the wild
sweetness of the fields; or the strain of the
little bush-sparrow, suddenly projected upon
the silence of the fields, or of the evening
twilight, and delighting the ear as a beautiful
scroll delights the eye. The white-crowned,
the white-throated, and the Canada sparrows
sing transiently spring and fall, and I have
heard the fox-sparrow in April when his song
haunted my heart like some bright, sad, deli-
cious memory of youth—the nchest and most
moving of all sparrow-songs. Our wren-music,
too, is superior to anything of the kind in the
Old World. Our house-wren is said to be a bet-
ter songster than the British house-wren, while
our winter wren, in sprightliness, mellowness,
plaintiveness, and execution, is surpassed by
but few songsters in the world. His summer
haunts are our high, cool, northern woods,

359

where, for the most part, his music is lost on
the primitive solitude.

The British fly-catcher, according to White,
is a silent bird, while our species, as the
phoebe-bird, the wood-pewee, the kingbird,
the little green fly-catcher, and others, all
have notes more or less lively and musical.
The great crested fly-catcher has a harsh
voice, but the pathetic and silvery note of the
wood-pewee more than makes up for it.
White says the golden-crowned wren (Regulus
cristatus ) is not a song-bird in Great Britain,
but the corresponding species here (2. sa-
trapa) has a rich, delicious, and prolonged
warble. In the Northern States, its song is
noticeable about the evergreens for a week or
two in May, while the bird pauses to feed, on
its way to Canada and beyond. In its breed-
ing haunts the ruby-crowned kinglet, tiny as
it is, fills the solitudes with music.

There are no vireos in Europe, nor birds
that answer to them. With us, they con-
tribute an important element to the music
of our groves and woods. There are few
birds I should miss more than the red-eyed
vireo, with his cheerful musical soliloquy, all
day and all summer, in the maples and locusts.
It is he, or rather she, that builds the exqui-
site basket-nest on the ends of the low, leafy
branches, suspending it between two twigs.
The warbling vireo has a stronger, louder
strain, often more continuous, but not quite so
sweet. The solitary vireo is heard only in the
deep woods, while the white-eyed is still more
local or restricted in its range, being found
only in wet, bushy places, whence its vehement,
varied, and brilliant song is sure to catch the
dullest ear.

The goldfinches of the two countries, though
differing in plumage, are perhaps pretty evenly
matched in song; while our purple finch, or
linnet, I am persuaded, ranks far above the
English linnet, or lintie, as the Scotch call it.
In compass, in melody, in sprightliness, it is a
remarkable songster. Indeed, take the finches
as a family, they certainly furnish more good
songsters in this country than in Great Britain.
They furnish the staple of our bird-melody,
including in the family the tanager and the
grosbeaks, while in Europe the warblers lead.
White names seven finches in his list, and
Barrington includes eight, none of them very
noted songsters, except the linnet. Our list
would include the sparrows above named, and
the indigo-bird, the goldfinch, the purple finch,
the scarlet tanager, the rose-breasted grosbeak,
the blue grosbeak, and the cardinal bird. Of
these birds, all except the fox-sparrow and the
blue grosbeak are familiar summer songsters
throughout the Middle and Eastern States.
The indigo-bird is a midsummer and an all-

360 ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS.

summer songster of great brilliancy. So is the
tanager. I judge there is no European thrush
that, in the pure charm of melody and hymn-
like serenity and spirituality, equals our wood
and hermit thrushes, as there is no bird there
that, in simple lingual excellence, approaches
our bobolink.

The European cuckoo makes more music
than ours, and their robin-redbreast is a better
singer than the allied species, to wit, the blue-
bird, with us. But it is mainly in the larks and
warblers that the European birds are richer in
songsters than are ours. We have an army of
small wood-warblers,—no less than forty spe-
cies,—but most of them have faint chattering
or lisping songs that escape all but the most at-
tentive ear, and these spend the summer far to
the north. Our two wagtails are our most brill-
lant warblers, if we except the kinglets, which
are northern birds in summer, and the Ken-
tucky warbler, which is a southern bird; but
they do not match the English blackcap, or
white-throat, or garden warbler, to say noth-
ing of the nightingale, though Audubon
thought our large-billed water-thrush, or wag-
tail, equaled that famous bird. It is certainly
a brilhant songster, but most provokingly brief;
the ear is arrested by a sudden joyous burst
of melody proceeding from the dim aisles
along which some wild brook has its way,
but just as you say “ Listen!” it ceases. I
hear and see the bird every season, along a
rocky stream that flows through a deep
chasm amid a wood of hemlock and pine.
As I sit at the foot of some cascade, or on
the brink of some little dark eddying pool
above it, this bird darts by me up or down
the stream, or alights near by upon a rock or
stone at the edge of the water. Its speckled
breast, its dark olive-colored back, its teeter-
ing, mincing gait, like that of a sandpiper, and
its sharp c/z¢, like the click of two pebbles under
water, are characteristic features. Then its
quick, ringing song, which you are sure pres-
ently to hear, suggests something so bright
and silvery that it seems almost to light up,
for a brief moment, the dim retreat. If this
strain were only sustained and prolonged like
the nightingale’s, there would be good grounds
for Audubon’s comparison. Its cousin, the
wood wagtail, or golden-crowned thrush of
the older ornithologists, and golden-crowned
accentor of the later,—a common bird in all our
woods,—has a similar strain, which it delivers
as it were surreptitiously, and in the most
precipitate manner, while on the wing high
above the tree-tops. It is a kind of wood-
lark, practicing and rehearsing on the sly.
When the modest songster is ready to come
‘out and give all a chance to hear his full and
completed strain, the European wood-lark

will need to look to his laurels. These two
birds are our best warblers, and yet they are
probably seldom heard, except by persons who
know and admire them. If the two kinglets
could also be included in our common New
England summer residents, our warbler music
would only pale before the song of Philomela
herself. The English redstart evidently sur-
passes ours as a songster, and we have no bird
to match the English wood-lark above referred
to, which is said to be but little inferior to the
sky-lark ; but, on the other hand, besides the
sparrows and vireos already mentioned, they
have no songsters to match our oriole, our
orchard starling, our cat-bird, our brown thrash-
er (only second to the mocking-bird), our che-
wink, our snow-bird, our cow-bunting, our bob-
olink, and our yellow-breastedchat. As regards
the swallows of the two countries, the advantage
is rather onthe sideof the American. Ourchim-
ney-swallow, with his incessant, silvery, rat-
tling chipper, evidently makes more music than
the corresponding house-swallow of Europe ;
while our purple martin is not represented in
the Old World avi-fauna at all. And yet it is
probably true that a dweller in England hears
more bird-music throughout the year than a
dweller in this country, and that which, in
some respects, is of a superior order.

In the first place, there is not so much of
it lost “upon the desert air,” upon the wild,
unlistening solitudes. The English birds are
more domestic and familiar than ours; more
directly and intimately associated with man;
not, as a class, so withdrawn and lost in
the great void of the wild and the unre-
claimed. England is like a continent con-
centrated—all the waste land, the barren
stretches, the wildernesses left out. The birds
are brought near together and near to man.
Wood birds here are house and garden
birds there. They find good pasturage and
protection everywhere. A land of parks,
and gardens, and hedge-rows, and game
preserves, and a climate free from violent
extremes—what a stage for the birds, and
for enhancing the effect of their songs! How
prolific they are, how abundant! If our
songsters were hunted and trapped, by bird-
fanciers and others, as the lark, and gold-
finch, and mavis, etc., are in England, the
race would soon become extinct. Then, as a
rule, it is probably true that the British birds,
as a class, have more voice than ours have,
or certain qualities that make their songs more
striking and conspicuous, such as greater
vivacity and strength. They are less bright
in plumage, but more animated in voice.
They are not so recently out of the woods,
and their strains have not that elusiveness
and plaintiveness that ours have. They sing

ll

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SONG-BIRDS.

with more confidence and copiousness, and
as if they, too, had been touched by civiliza-
tion.

Then they sing more hours in the day, and
more days in the year. This is owing to the
milder and more equable climate. I heard
the sky-lark singing above the South Downs
in October, apparently with full spring fervor
and delight. The wren, the robin, and the
wood-lark sing throughout the winter, and in
midsummer there are perhaps three times as
many vocal throats as here. The heat and
blaze of our midsummer sun silence most of
our birds.

There are but four songsters that I hear with
any regularity after the meridian of summer is
past, namely, the indigo-bird, the wood or
bush sparrow, the scarlet tanager, and the
red-eyed vireo, while White names eight or
nine August songsters, though he speaks of
the yellow-hammer only as persistent. His
dictum, that birds sing as long as nidifica-
tion goes on, is as true here as in England.
Hence our wood-thrush will continue in
song over into August if, as frequently hap-
pens, its June nest has been broken up by
the crows or squirrels.

The British songsters are more vocal at
night than ours. White says the grasshopper
lark chirps ali night in the height of summer.
The sedge-bird also sings the greater part of
the night. A stone thrown into the bushes
where it is roosting, after it has become silent,
will set it going again. Other British birds,
besides the nightingale, sing more or less at
night.

In this country the mocking-bird is the
only regular night-singer we have. Other
songsters break out occasionally in the middle
of the night, but so briefly that it gives one
the impression that they sing in their sleep.
Thus I have heard the hair-bird, or chippie,
the kingbird, the oven-bird, and the cuckoo,
fitfully in the dead of the night, like a school-
boy laughing in his dreams.

On the other hand, there are certain aspects
in which our songsters appear to advantage.
That they surpass the European species in
sweetness, tenderness, and melody I have no
doubt, and that our mocking-bird, in his
native haunts in the South, surpasses any bird
in the world in compass, variety, and execu-
tion is highly probable. That the total effect

Vor, XXITI.—3o.

361

of his strain may be less winning and _per-
suasive than the nocturne of the nightingale, is
the only question in my mind about the rel-
ative merits of the two songsters. Bring our
birds together as they are brought together in
England, all our shy wood-birds—like the
hermit thrush, the veery, the winter wren, the
wood wagtail, the water wagtail, the many
warblers, the greenlet, the solitary vireo, etc.
—become birds of the groves and orchards,
and there would be a burst ofsong indeed.

I append parallel lists of the better-known
American and English song-birds, marking
in each with an asterisk those that are proba-
bly the better songsters ; followed by a list of
other American songsters, some of which are
not represented in the British avifauna :

Old England. ew England.

* Wood-lark.
Song-thrush.
Wren.

Willow wren.

* Red-breast.

* Redstart.
Hedge sparrow.
Yellow-hammer.

* Sky-lark.
Swallow.

* Blackcap.
Titlark.

* Blackbird.
White-throat.
Goldfinch.
Green finch.
Reed-sparrow.
Linnet.
Chaffinch.

* Nightingale.
Missal thrush.
Great titmouse.
Bulfinch.

Meadow-lark.

* Wood-thrush.

* House-wren.

* Winter wren.
Bluebird.
Redstart.

* Song-sparrow.

* Fox-sparrow.
Bobolink.
Swallow.

Wood wagtail.
Titlark (spring and fall).
Robin.

* Maryland yellow-throat.
Goldfinch.

* Wood-sparrow.

* Vesper sparrow.

* Purple finch.

* Indigo-bird.
Water wagtail.

* Hermit thrush.
Savanna sparrow.
Chickadee.

New England song-birds not included in the

above:

Red-eyed vireo.

Orchard oriole.

White-eyed vireo. Cat-bird.
Brotherly love vireo. Brown thrasher.
Solitary vireo. Chewink.

Blue-headed vireo.
Scarlet tanager.
Baltimore oriole.

Rose-breasted grosbeak.
Purple martin.
Mocking-bird.

—besides a dozen or more species of the
sylvicolide, or wood-warblers, some of which,
like the black-throated green warbler, the
speckled Canada warbler, the hooded warbler,
and the mourning ground-warbler, and the
yellow warbler, are fine songsters.

{Begun in the December number. ]

A MODERN

INSTANCE.*

BY W. D. HOWELLS,

Author of “ Venetian Life,’ “A Chance Acquaintance,” “The Undiscovered Countfy,” etc.

Vi

ed too little for Marcia’s
happiness, and aftér dinner she did not let
Bartley forget his last night’s engagement.
She sent him off to get his horse at the hotel,
and ran up to her room to put on her wraps
for the drive. Her mother cleared away the
dinner things; she pushed the table to the
side of the room, and then sat down in
her feather-cushioned chair\\and waited her
husband’s pleasure to speak.\ He ordinarily
rose from the Sunday dinner and, went back to
his office; to-day he had taken a\chair before
the stove. But he had mechanically put his
hat on, and he wore it pushed off his forehead
as he tilted his chair back on its hind legs,
and braced himself against the hearth, of the
stove with his feet.

A man is master in his own house geéner-
ally through the exercise of a certain degreé,o
brutality, but Squire Gaylord maintained his
predominance by an enlightened absenteeigii
No man living always at home was evef so\

TuHeE house se

Gaylord in the family-room/where they now
sat in unwonted companiorship.

“Well, Mr. Gaylord,” said his wife, “I
don’t know as you can gay but what Jarcia’s
suited well enough.”

This was the firsf allusion they had made
to the subject, byt she let it take the argu-
mentative form of her cogitations.

“M-yes,” sighed the Squire, in long, nasal
assent, “most too well, if anything.” He
rasped first gne unshaven cheek and then the
other, with’his thin, quivering hand.

“ He’s/smart enough,” said Mrs. Gaylord,
as befoye.

“ Méyes, most too smart,” replied her hus-
band/ a little more quickly than before. “He’s
smaft enough, even if she wasn’t, to see from
thé start that she was crazy to have him, and

at isn’t the best way to begin life for a mar-
ried couple, if I’m a judge.”

“Tt would killed her if she hadn’t got him.
I could see ’twas wearin’ on her every day,
more and more. She used to fairly jump, every
knock she’d hear at the door; and I know

little under his own roof. While he was in \sometimes, when she was afraid he wasn’t

more active business life, he had kept an
office in the heart of the village, where he
spent all his days, and a great part/of every
night; but after he had become meh enough
to risk whatever loss of business/the change
might involve, he bought this large old square
house on the border of the villafe, and thence-
forth made his home in th¢ little detached
office.

If Mrs. Gaylord had dimly imagined that
she should see something/more of him, having
him so near at hand, shé really saw less: there
was no weather, by day or night, in which he
could not go to his office, now. He went no
more than his wifé into the village society ;
she might have Jeen glad now and then of
a little glimpse/of the world, but she never
said so, and hér social life had ceased like
her religious fife. Their house was richly fur-
nished according to the local taste of the
time ; the farlor had a Brussels carpet, and
heavy chairs of mahogany and _hair-cloth;
Marcia had a piano there, and since she had
come home from school they had made com-
pany, As Mrs. Gaylord called it, two or three
times for her; but they had held aloof from
the festivity, the Squire in his office, and Mrs.

* Copyright, 1881, by W. D. Howells.

oming, she used to go out, in hopes ’t she

sh’d meet him: I don’t suppose she allowed
to\herself that she did it for that—Marcia’s
proud.”

“M-yes,” said the Squire, “she’s proud.
And when a proud girl makes a fool of her-
self about a fellow, it’s a matter of life and
death with her. She can’t help herself. She
lets go éverything.”

“I declare,” Mrs. Gaylord went on, “it

worked me up considerable to have her come
in some those times, and see by her face ’t

she’d seen him with some the other girls. She
used to /ook\so! And then I'd hear her up in
her room, cryin’ and cryin’. I shouldn’t cared
so much, ‘if Marcia’d been like any other girl,
kind of flirty, ike, about it. But she wa’n’t.
She was just bowed down before her idol.”

A final assent ‘came from the Squire as if
wrung out of his ‘heart, and he rose from his
chair, and then sat down again. Marcia was
his child, and he loved her with his whole
soul.

“M-well!” he deeply sighed, “all that
part’s over, anyway,” but he tingled in an
anguish of sympathy with what she had suf-
fered. “ You see, Miranda, how she looked

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