y a way
that some pulled off the feathers then and there, and all promised to
reform? She loved birds so truly that she would not be angry when
spring after spring they picked her seeds out of her 'Island Garden.'"

"Have you any special magnetic power over birds, so that they will
come at your call or rest on your outstretched finger?"

"Not in the least. I just like them, and love to get acquainted with
them. Each bird whose acquaintance I make is as truly a discovery to
me as if he were totally unknown to the world."

We were sitting by a southern window that looks out on a
wide-spreading and ancient elm, my glory and pride. Not one bird had I
seen on it that cold, repellent middle of March. But Mrs. Miller
looked up, and said: "Your robins have come!" Sure enough I could now
see a pair.

"And there are the woodpeckers, but they have stayed all winter. No
doubt you have the hooting owls. There's an oriole's nest, badly
winter-worn; but they will come back and build again. I see you feed
your chickadees and sparrows, because they are so tame and fearless.
I'd like to come later and make a list of the birds on your place."

I wonder how many she would find. Visiting at Deerfield,
Massachusetts, I said one day to my host, the artist J.W. Champney:
"You don't seem to have many birds round you."

"No?" he replied with a mocking rising inflection. "Mrs. Miller, who
was with us last week, found thirty-nine varieties in our front yard
before breakfast!" Untrained eyes are really blind.

Mrs. Miller is an excellent housekeeper, although a daughter now
relieves her of that care. But, speaking at table of this and that
dish and vegetable, she promised to send me some splendid receipts for
orange marmalade, baked canned corn, scalloped salmon, onion _a la
creme_ (delicious), and did carefully copy and send them.

She told me that in Denmark a woman over forty-five is considered
gone. If she is poor, a retreat is ready for her without pay; if rich,
she would better seek one of the homes provided for aged females who
can pay well for a home.

Another thing of interest was the fact that when Mrs. Miller eats no
breakfast, her brain is in far better condition to write. She is a
Swedenborgian, and I think that persons of that faith have usually a
cheerful outlook on life. She was obliged to support herself after
forty years of age.

I would add to her advice about a hobby: don't wait till middle age;
have one right away,