e, and our only consolation was the thought that,
as far as we knew, he had never had a sorrow in his life, and we can
only hope that if there are "happy hunting-grounds" for birds our Dick
may be there, bright and happy still.

[Illustration: FLYING STARLINGS]

RICHARD THE SECOND.

On a wet stormy day in May a young unfledged bird was blown out of its
nest and was picked up in a paved yard where, somehow, it had fallen
unhurt.

There he was found by my kind-hearted butler, who appeared with the
little shivering thing in his hand to see if I would adopt it. The
butler pleaded for it, and it squawked its own petition piteously
enough, but I was far from strong, and I knew at what very early hours
these young feathered people required to be fed. I therefore felt I
ought hardly to give up the time which sometimes brought me the precious
boon of sleep after a wakeful night. Very reluctantly I refused the
gift, and felt wretchedly hard-hearted in doing so. I will confide to my
readers that in my secret heart I thought the poor orphan was a
blackbird or thrush, and they are birds I feel ought never to be caged;
they pine and look so sadly longing for liberty; even their song has a
minor key of plaintiveness when it comes through prison bars, and this
feeling helped my decision.

A few days after I heard that the birdie was adopted in the pantry, and
was being fed "in the intervals of business." When a few days later I
was definitely informed that the birdie waif was a starling, then I
confess I did begin to long for another little friend such as my former
"Dick" had been, and it ended in my receiving Richard the Second, as we
called him for distinction, into my own care and keeping, and month
after month I was his much-enduring mother. Most fledglings are much the
same at first; whenever I came in sight the gaping beak was ever ready
for food, and the capacity for receiving it was wonderful. Richard grew
very fast; little quills appeared and opened out into feathers; his
walking powers increased till he could make a tottering run upon the
carpet; and then he began to object to his basket and would have a perch
like a grown-up bird, practised going to sleep on one leg, which for a
long time was a downright failure and ended in constant tumbles.

He was always out of his cage whilst I was dressing, and was full of fun
and play, scheming to get his bath before I did, and running off with
anything he could carry. W