uch mellow richness and such infinite fecundity of modulation, that
the old hovel almost burst with intoxicated song, combining gladness,
welcome, fear, defiance, superstition, horror, and epithalamium all
together, like Orpheus gone mad, and losing the continuity of his golden
notes.

The bird's upper bill was beaked like a hawk's, his lower was sharp as a
lance, and between them issued that infuriated melody and cadence and
epithet that old Patrick Henry's spirit might have migrated into from
his grave in the Virginia woods. He suddenly flung himself from his
vortex of song upon the bed of the sick man, with a twitching hop and
rapid opening and shutting of the tail, like the fan of a disturbed
beauty, and thence perched upon Milburn's peaked hat, and with a
convulsive struggle of his throat and body, as if he were in superhuman
labor, brought out, distinct as man could speak, the words,

"'Sband! 'sband! Vesty! Vesty! Sweet! sweet! Come see! come see!"

Vesta, by a quick, expert movement, grasped the bird, and smoothed it
against her bosom, and soothed its excitement.

She had heard verified what Audubon avowed, and had but recently
published in the beautiful edition of his works her father was a
subscriber to, that some said the American mocking-bird could imitate
the human voice, though the naturalist remarked that he himself had
never heard the bird do it.

The present verification, Vesta thought, of the mocking-bird's supremest
power, might have issued from its excitement at the silent and helpless
condition of its master--that master who had told Vesta that no bird in
the woods ever resisted his seductions and mystic influence.

"If that be true," Vesta said to herself, "there is no danger of this
vociferous pet making his escape if I put him out of the window till I
can see if his master speaks or lives."

So she raised the window, and flung the mocking-bird up into the air,
and it came down and dropped into the old willow-tree beneath, and there
set up a concert the Sabbath morning might have been proud of, when, in
the corn-fields, the free-footed Saviour went plucking the milky ears.
Vesta could but stop a minute and listen.

The liquid notes chased each other around in circles of dizzy harmony,
as if angels were at hide-and-seek on the blue branches of the air,
eluding each other in pure-heartedness, chasing each other with eager
love, sighing praise and happiness as their supernal hearts emitted
m