ere, once, expected to close; as the allaithful half-reproachful signal from a aiting child not used to neglect even when rown-ups were busiest-a fragment of an ld mute secret code devised very long go. Then I knew. And it was as though I ad known from the first day when I looked cross the lawn at the high window. new and I was content. I "And the same thing with keeping the fire in all night. I don't think it so foolish." I looked at the hearth, saw-through tears, I believe that there was no forbidding iron on or near it and bowed my head. "I did all that and lots of other thingsjust to make believe. Then they came. I heard them; but I didn't know that they were not mine by right-till Mrs. Madden I heard the door shut: the woman turned told meo me in silence. What time passed after this I cannot tell. was roused by the fall of a log, and mehanically put it back. It was a curiously nottled piece of birch, the layers of bark rilled by the heat. "Now you understand?" she whispered, cross the shadows. "Yes. Thank you." "I-I only hear them." She bowed her ead in her hands. "I have no right, you now-no other right. I have neither porne nor lost-neither borne nor lost!" "Be very glad then," said I, for my soul vas torn open within me. "Forgive me!" She was still and I went back to my sorow and my joy. "It was because I loved them so," she said at last, brokenly. “That was why it vas-even from the first-even before I knew that they—they were all I should ever nave. And I loved them so!" She stretched out her arms to the shadow, and the shadows within the shadow. "They came because I loved them-because I needed them. I-I must have made them come. Was that wrong, think Fou? I wasn't cheating anybody." "No-no!" "The butler's wife? What?" "One of them-I heard-she saw. Hers! Not for me. Afterwards I began to understand that it was only because I loved them, not because Oh you must bear or lose," she said piteously. "There is no other way, and yet they love me. Don't they?" There was no sound in the room except the voices of the fire, but we two listened intently and she at least took comfort from what she heard. She recovered herself and half rose. I sat still in my chair. "Don't think me a wretch to whine about myself like this, but-but I'm all in the dark, you know, and you can see." In truth I could see, and my vision confirmed me in my resolve, though that was like the very parting of spirit and flesh. Yet a little longer I would stay, since it was for the last time. "You think it is wrong, then?" she cried sharply, though I had said nothing. "Not for you. A thousand times no. For you it is right I'm grateful to you beyond words. For me it would be wrong. For me only. "Why?" she said; but passed her hand before her face as she had done at our second meeting in the wood. "Oh, I see," she went on as simply as a child. "Yes, for you it would be wrong. Then with a little indrawn laugh, "and-do you remember?-I called you lucky--once-at first. You who must never come here again!" She left me to sit a little longer, only a little longer, by the screen, and I heard the sound of her feet die out along the gallery above. Refuse him and end it? Refuse him? For whom? Accept him? Forever? As long as I live? How can I? How dare I? Not yet: Oh not yet! What legions of possible joys I should give! Life filtered through him would be what I should get. Let him come! Let him tell his own story and gain What he wants, if he can. 'Tis not mine to confer. 'Tis for him to persuade 'tis for him to obtain Can he win? Let him try. If he does, I concur. IF BIRD OR DEVIL By Philip Loring Allen ILLUSTRATIONS BY MAY WILSON PRESTON W HOEVER found these verses on his doorstep perceived at once that Gottlieb was no ordinary tailor, and a visit to his shop only made this more certain. It was almost the lowest terms of a tailor shop, Gottlieb having neither partners nor employees nor self-heating irons; but he administered it as if he were a veritable captain of industry, and it a corporation of untold ramifications. Three months after his first customer had climbed down from the street level, he would turn over the leaves of his portentous books of samples with a musing air, as if each pattern recalled to his mind the hosts of men, now famous or in their graves, for whom he had VOL. XXXVI.-15 constructed coats and trousers of those particular goods. Truth to tell, a contract for so important a work as a suit of clothes was rare enough with Gottlieb, whose precarious livelihood was gained chiefly from what he called the "pressing department." Yet long before he had conquered that world, he was reaching out for others. "You see? Ve got a parrot department to-day," was Gottlieb's way of introducing his newest accession to his oldest customer, who was really very far from old, and took an almost childish delight in each of Gottlieb's prospective ventures. None had been so sympathetic as he when the last new department had failed by reason of the fact that goldfish will not thrive in a basement tailor's shop. "T'ree tventy-fife," said Gottlieb. "He don't cost no more dan sefen cents a veek to feed him, and after I've learned him to talk a lot of t'ings, I sell him for-I don't know-fife hundert, six hundert dollars." "What's his name?" asked the young man, holding up a finger which the parrot eyed distrustfully. "Dat's what I was going to ask you to gif him a name," said Gottlieb expectantly. "You might call him Saladin," suggested the oldest customer. "He's got a hooked beak something like a scimitar." "Saladin," repeated the tailor: "It sounds too much like a vegetable." 141 "Go by his nose; call him Wellington." "Vellington, det sounds better. I guess maybe ve make him Vellington." "Wellington, want a cracker?" asked the young man amiably. "Dere is two t'ings," said Gottlieb, with tremendous emphasis, "dat nobody is going to be allowed to do here. One of dem is to call him Polly, and de odder is to ask him vill he haf a cracker. Dat's just where he's going to be diffunt from all de odder parrots. What's de sense if a parrot say, 'Polly vant-'I mustn't say it myself vile he's here, but you know what dey always say, and it's so foolish. Now, Vellington, I shan't learn him notting except t'ings what is nice for him to say. Somet'ing like de little boys speak in school." "What have you thought of?" "Dat's anoder t'ing I didn't decide yet. I could gif him plenty of t'ings out of de Cherman potes, but you see I got to sell him in English. Den I tell you besides, I vouldn't like to make a mistake and haf him speak somet'ing de The oldest customer brought to the shop a stylish-looking young woman -Page 145. quaintance with English literature could hardly, in the nature of things, exceed a page or two in an anthology. But here was a decision to be made which would affect the bird's whole future, to say nothing of the owner's. Something must be found not merely outside the ordinary parrot's repertoire, but essentially foreign to the bird's point of view, the acme of incongruity. To begin with, what was the bird's point of view? The house dog's friendly bark is properly translated into a cry of welcome. What do the parrot's hoarse, unstudied outcries mean? If he had the power of appreciation and free choice, what poetical motives would appeal? These were the young man's conclusions: Romantic affection the bird certainly possessed. There are few things more sentimental than the parrot's aspect as he lays his head on one side and looks at you. One of his near relatives has even been christened the love-bird. Appreciation of na ture? It must be pre-eminently a quality of a bird whose natural occupation is to climb up and down lemon trees and fly picturesquely through tropical vegetation. Sentiment and reflection? Come upon the bird alone and who can doubt that he indulges in plaintive fancies? "Why," his look seems to say, "should the mere circumstance that I have bright-colored feathers and can talk condemn me to transportation for life, while my less brilliant neighbors are still on delectable islands?" Love of home and friends? It is so strong in the parrot's breast that he will return even to the narrow quarters of his cage. Adventure? What creature goes more formidably armed, or is more ready to try conclusions with a marauding puppy or cat? Plainly, the parrot had all these. But did he have also that yet higher quality, love of country? Was it in the catalogue of the parrot's emotions? The young man thought of all the parrots of his acquaint |