rection of my outstretched hand. In all the troubles
and trials through which that proud Mr. G. Bird and I went hand in hand, or
rather wing in hand, in which I was at times hard and cold and
disappointed in him, I have never forgotten that he turned in his tracks
and walked majestically back to my side and peered into the outstretched
hand with a trustful and inquiring peck. Some kind fortune had brought it
to pass that I held the package of tea biscuits in my other hand, and in a
few breathless seconds he was pecking at one and calling to the foolish,
faithless lot of huddled hens in the bushes to come to him immediately.
First he called invitingly while I held my breath, and then he commanded as
he scratched for lost crumbs in the white dust of the Riverfield ribbon,
but the foolish creatures only huddled and squeaked, and at a few cautious
steps I took in their direction, they showed a decided threat of vanishing
forever into the woods.

"Oh, what will I do, Mr. G. Bird?" I asked in despair, with a real sob in
my throat as I looked toward the family coach, from which I could hear a
happy and animated discussion of Plato's Republic going on between the two
old gentlemen who had thirty years' arrears in argument and conversation to
make up. I could see that no help would come from that direction. "I can't
lose them forever," I said again, and this time there was the real sob
arising unmistakably in my voice.

"Just stand still, and I'll call them to you," came a soft, deep voice out
of the forest behind me, and behold, a man stood at my side!

The man's name is Adam.

"Now give me a cracker and watch 'em come," he said, as he came close to my
side and took a biscuit from my surprised and nerveless hand. "Ah, but you
are one beauty, aren't you?" he further remarked, and I was not positively
sure whether he meant me or the Golden Bird until I saw that he had reached
down and was stroking Mr. G. Bird with a delighted hand. "Chick, chick,
chick!" he commanded, with a note that was not at all unlike the commanding
one the Sultan had used a few minutes past, only more so, and in less than
two seconds all those foolish hens were scrambling around our feet. In
fact, the command in his voice had been so forcible that I myself had moved
several feet nearer to him until I, too, was in the center of my
scrambling, clucking Bird venture.

I don't like beautiful men. I never did. I think that a woman ought to have
all the beaut