me to him. The hammering of a woodpecker on a dead
sycamore, a little above him, rolled to his straining ears like a drum
beat.

The Cardinal hated the woodpecker more than he disliked the dove.

It was only foolishly effusive, but the woodpecker was a veritable
Bluebeard. The Cardinal longed to pull the feathers from his back
until it was as red as his head, for the woodpecker had dressed his
suit in finest style, and with dulcet tones and melting tenderness had
gone acourting. Sweet as the dove's had been his wooing, and one more
pang the lonely Cardinal had suffered at being forced to witness his
felicity; yet scarcely had his plump, amiable little mate consented to
his caresses and approved the sycamore, before he turned on her, pecked
her severely, and pulled a tuft of plumage from her breast. There was
not the least excuse for this tyrannical action; and the sight filled
the Cardinal with rage. He fully expected to see Madam Woodpecker
divorce herself and flee her new home, and he most earnestly hoped that
she would; but she did no such thing. She meekly flattened her
feathers, hurried work in a lively manner, and tried in every way to
anticipate and avert her mate's displeasure. Under this treatment he
grew more abusive, and now Madam Woodpecker dodged every time she came
within his reach. It made the Cardinal feel so vengeful that he longed
to go up and drum the sycamore with the woodpecker's head until he
taught him how to treat his mate properly.

There was plently of lark music rolling with the river, and that
morning brought the first liquid golden notes of the orioles. They had
arrived at dawn, and were overjoyed with their homecoming, for they
were darting from bank to bank singing exquisitely on wing. There
seemed no end to the bird voices that floated with the river, and yet
there was no beginning to the one voice for which the Cardinal waited
with passionate longing.

The oriole's singing was so inspiring that it tempted the Cardinal to
another effort, and perching where he gleamed crimson and black against
the April sky, he tested his voice, and when sure of his tones, he
entreatingly called: "Come here! Come here!"

Just then he saw her! She came daintily over the earth, soft as down
before the wind, a rosy flush suffusing her plumage, a coral beak, her
very feet pink--the shyest, most timid little thing alive. Her bright
eyes were popping with fear, and down there among the ferns, an