she had been a larger edition of themselves, and not of a different
genus. She made me stand by her while this was going on, saying that the
hummers were "too well-bred to be afraid of her friends, and were
especially fond of little people."

"The honeysuckles first made me think of collecting them," went on the
pleasant tinkle. "When they are in full bloom the frisky little
creatures swarm in them all day long. They like white and yellow
jessamine, too, and catalpa flowers and lilies and acacia blossoms. Ten
years ago I found one of their nests upon a low limb of a tulip-poplar
tree. Here it is! It looks like a knob of mossy bark, you see. There
were two eggs in it. I cut off the limb carefully, and set it in a pot
of water in this room. It was full of blossoms, and the water kept these
alive. The window was left open and nobody--not even myself--came in
here for a week. As I had hoped, the mother and father bird found the
nest, and went on sitting on the eggs as if it had not been moved. One
night, after the baby birds were hatched, I went softly to the outside
of the window and let down the sash. That was the beginning of my
aviary. That's a hard word for you--isn't it, Molly? It means a family
of birds, such as I have here."

"I don't believe there is another like it in the world," said Cousin
Molly Belle. "I've always declared that you are a fairy, and charm your
hummers. I described it and them once to a famous ornithologist. That's
a real jaw-breaker, Namesake, and means one who knows everything about
all sorts of birds--or thinks he does. I met this or-nith-ol-o-gist in
New York last May. He said it was impossible to tame and raise families
of wild birds, especially humming-birds. And when I said I had seen it
with my own eyes, times without number, he looked polite--and
unbelieving."

Madam Leigh was so much amused that the flowers shook in her shrivelled
mites of hands.

"Many learned strangers have been to see the 'impossibility,'" she said,
her voice shaken by laughter.

(Cousin Molly Belle had the knack of saying just the thing that would
please everybody, and saying it in the right way and at the right
time.)

"Of course I have not raised them all from the eggs," continued Madam.
"We catch new birds every year, and some are never quite tame. So your
or-nith-ol-o-gist"--pronouncing it in the same comical way that Cousin
Molly Belle had done--"was not altogether in the wrong. But they get
used to t