"'Who, every day for food or play,
Came to the Mariner's hollo.'"
"It's a queer story. No, I don't suppose it was really true. But it is always considered bad luck to kill one. I must get the book for you."
"Oh, if you would," in her pretty, coaxing way. "Pablo wanted to kill the gull. Then we might have had bad luck. And now we can't find any name for him."
"That's bad, too."
His leg had mended nicely and the splints were off, though it must be confessed he had tugged a great deal at them, and could not be brought to understand their benefit, though it was explained over and over again. But his wing did not seem to be just right, and his efforts to fly were not successful.
"But I wish he could. He would look so lovely sailing about."
"And fly away!"
"Oh, I don't really believe he would."
Uncle Jason brought home a fine illustrated copy of the "Ancient Mariner" from an English press. In the early fifties, even in vaunted New York, Boston, and Philadelphia illustrating had not reached the high point of art it was destined to later on.