losely at you, and just as soon as he observes the surprise that your
eyes show, he says: "I ought to say right here that my mother had a very
choice piece of lace, a collar or something of that sort, that was
washed and put out upon a little bush to dry on the very day that Mr.
and Mrs. Robin decided to build the nest in the fir-tree. A great fuss
was made that evening because the lace collar could not be found, and
mother wanted the police called, so that the thief might be arrested and
the collar got back, for that collar was worth, I have heard, a great
many dollars. But the police never found the thief.

"Now I will go on, with my story," always continues my friend, and he
generally takes the nest in his hands at this time. "Well, after this
nest--this is the very one I hold in my hand--was built, you never saw a
more attentive lover than this Mr. Robin. He would hop about with his
club-foot, and seem to put his eye right upon an angle-worm's cave every
time he flew down to the ground, and you might see him from early
morning to sunset flying back and forth with his mouth full of good
things for Mrs. Robin, and he would feed her as she sat upon the nest.

"One day he seemed specially excited and happy; you could hear him
singing in the tree more loudly than before, and I could see from my
window the cause of his joy. Four yellow mouths were put up to receive
the dainties he had brought, and then I knew that the little robins had
come. Well, old Mr. Robin was so excited that he did not see our cat
stealthily coming, as he was pulling away at a very long angle-worm.
Pussy had him in her mouth before he could even give a warning cry, and
the last I saw of Mr. Robin was the club-foot that hung out of Puss's
mouth.

"By-and-by Mrs. Robin seemed to get hungry, and I heard her uttering two
strange notes that I had never heard before, and which seemed to me to
sound just as though she was saying, 'Come here! come here!' Of course
that was not what she said, but I have no doubt that the notes meant
just that, and that every robin that might have heard them would have
understood them as a call for help. But no robin came. It rained all
that day, and poor Mrs. Robin kept up that cry, and her young ones
continually thrust their bills from beneath her body, and opened them. I
could not help them, of course, for little birds would rather starve
than be fed by any one but their parents.

"Now I am coming to the strangest part