or of his life as it might have
been if Kitty had been as gentle with him as this woman by his side,
there was no telling. His old habit of reticence fell back upon him as
suddenly as it had been cast aside, and he led the way up the little
stream in silence. As he walked, the ardor of his passion cooled, and
he began to point out things with his eloquent hands--the minnows,
wheeling around in the middle of a glassy pool; a striped bullfrog,
squatting within the spray of a waterfall; huge combs of honey,
hanging from shelving caverns along the cliff where the wild bees had
stored their plunder for years. At last, as they stood before a
drooping elder whose creamy blossoms swayed beneath the weight of
bees, he halted and motioned to a shady seat against the canyon wall.

"There are gardens in every desert," he said, as she sank down upon
the grassy bank, "but this is ours."

They sat for a while, gazing contentedly at the clusters of elder
blossoms which hung above them, filling the air with a rich fragrance
which was spiced by the tang of sage. A ruby-throated humming-bird
flashed suddenly past them and was gone; a red-shafted woodpecker,
still more gorgeous in his scarlet plumage, descended in uneven
flights from the _sahuaros_ that clung against the cliff and,
fastening upon a hollow tree, set up a mysterious rapping.

"He is hunting for grubs," explained Hardy. "Does that inspire you?"

"Why, no," answered Lucy, puzzled.

"The Mexicans call him _pajaro corazon_--_pah-hah-ro cor-ah-sone_,"
continued the poet. "Does that appeal to your soul?"

"Why, no. What does it mean--woodpecker?"

Hardy smiled. "No," he said, "a woodpecker with them is called
_carpintero_--carpenter, you understand--because he hammers on trees;
but my friend up on the stump yonder is _Pajaro Corazon_--bird of the
heart. I have a poem dedicated to him." Then, as if to excuse himself
from the reading, he hastened on: "Of course, no true poet would
commit such a breach--he would write a sonnet to his lady's eyebrow, a
poem in memory of a broken dream, or some sad lament for Love, which
has died simultaneously with his own blasted hopes. But a sense of my
own unimportance has saved me--or the world, at any rate--from such
laments. _Pajaro Corazon_ and _Chupa Rosa_, a little humming-bird who
lives in that elder tree, have been my only friends and companions in
the muse, until you came. I wouldn't abuse _Chupa Rosa's_ confidence
by reading my p