placed on the branch of a tree, where I had the
companionship of butterflies and bees and many kinds of birds. Although
they were neither so large nor so beautiful in color as those I knew in
my childhood on the banks of the Congo, still I found them excellent
company. I would have been perfectly happy in the garden had it not been
for the chain which fastened me to the branch; but experience had made
me wiser than formerly, and I had learned not to expect perfect
happiness, so I wore my chain patiently.

My feed dish was fastened at my side, and as it was always well filled
with sugar, bird seed, and other dainties, I often offered some to my
new friends; but so awed were they by my size and grand appearance that
they feared to approach me, although they would sit on a neighboring
branch and talk to me by the hour. Suddenly an idea occurred to me,
which I at once put in practice. Springing from my branch, I hung in the
air by my chain, which was not only healthy exercise, but left my feed
dish free for my guests. They came in crowds, the sparrows of course,
hundreds of them, and also robins and finches. So often was this
repeated that, to the great surprise of the children, my feed dish was
emptied several times every day.

"Mamma," I heard Carrie say once when they were all in the garden
together, "Rito eats like an ogre. I am afraid he'll kill himself."

"The fresh air makes him hungry," said Louis, who always had a wise
reason for everything. "The day you went to grandpa's, and played in the
hay meadow, you ate like an ogre too. I heard grandma say so."

"Yes, I did eat all the jumbles in grandma's tin cake-box," said Carrie;
"but that was only once, and every day nurse has to fill Rito's feed
dish seven or eight times. He eats enough for ten Ritos."

"Oh, mamma, look at him!" screamed little Hope, who at that moment spied
me indulging in my favorite exercise, swinging back and forth on my
chain. The children and their mother ran toward me, while I, with one of
my loud laughs (which I have heard some people say was a very wicked
laugh: _I_ don't think so), skillfully swung myself back to my branch,
frightening as I did it a crowd of my feathered friends who were
gathered about my feed dish. The children's mother saw them fly away.
"Look," she cried; "there go the ogres. It is those thieving sparrows
who eat so much, and not Lorito himself."

Now the sparrows may be too bold sometimes, but I do not think they ar