g in the top of a tree, apparently
conversing with himself, or with some tiny thing which he held in his
hands.

"Ah, yes, you poor little sickly thing!" she heard him mutter. "Don't
you make such an ado now. You shall soon be quite well, if you will only
mind what I tell you. Stop, stop! Take it easy. It is all for your own
good, you know. If you had only been prudent, and not stepped on your
lame leg, you might have been spared this affliction. But, after all, it
was not your fault--it was that foolish little mother of yours. She will
remember now that a skein of hemp thread is not the thing to line her
nest with. If she doesn't, you may tell her that it was I who said so."

Augusta stood gazing on in mute astonishment; then, suddenly remembering
her hasty toilet, she started to run; but, as chance would have it, a
dry branch, which hung rather low, caught at her hood, and her hair fell
in a black wavy stream down over her shoulders. She gave a little
cry, the tree shook violently, and Strand was at her side. She blushed
crimson over neck and face, and, in her utter bewilderment, stood like a
culprit before him, unable to move, unable to speak, and only returning
with a silent bow his cordial greeting. It seemed to her that she had
ungenerously intruded upon his privacy, watching him, while he thought
himself unobserved. And Augusta was quite unskilled in those social
accomplishments which enable young ladies to hide their inward emotions
under a show of polite indifference, for, however hard she strove,
she could not suppress a slight quivering of her lips, and her intense
self-reproach made Strand's words fall dimly on her ears, and prevented
her from gathering the meaning of what he was saying. He held in his
hands a young bird with a yellow line along the edge of its bill (and
there was something beautifully soft and tender in the way those large
palms of his handled any living thing), and he looked pityingly at it
while he spoke.

"The mother of this little linnet," he said, smiling, "did what
many foolish young mothers are apt to do. She took upon her the
responsibility of raising offspring without having acquired the
necessary knowledge of housekeeping. So she lined her nest with hemp,
and the consequence was, that her first-born got his legs entangled, and
was obliged to remain in the nest long after his wings had reached their
full development. I saw her feeding him about a week ago, and, as my
curiosity p