“Oh, ah!” Jessie whispered, as though afraid to break the spell. “Did you ever hear such bird music in all your life? What can he be?”
“I wish I’d paid a little more attention to my natural history now,” said Lucile, smiling ruefully. “But even that wouldn’t help much until we’d seen the bird, anyway. Let’s see if we can get a glimpse of him.”
They were following eagerly, when Jessie exclaimed, “Oh, bother! There’s Phil on the porch beckoning to us. What do you suppose he wants?”
“I don’t know; breakfast, maybe,” Lucile answered. “Suppose you girls run over and tell him I’ll come right away. I do want to locate that bird.”
“All right; only don’t be long,” Jessie advised, as they started, arm in arm, toward the inn. “We’ll have some time after breakfast to do the locating.”
Lucile retorted laughingly, and was off in the direction from which the sweet notes had seemed to come.
“Of course, he wouldn’t sing now that I want him to in a hurry,” she communed with herself. “Any one of these birds might be the one as far as looks are concerned.”
She was just about to despair, and had almost made up her mind to turn back, when the golden note rose again and she stopped, entranced. There, over her head and not five feet away, swaying perilously on a slender twig, 150 balanced the little songster, pouring out his joy to a responsive world.
“Oh, you darling!” cried Lucile, impulsively. “I wish I could take you home with me, which you would not like at all. I must ask Dad what you are; he would probably know.”
So, triumphant, she started happily along the path, anxious to tell the girls of her luck. It was a great temptation to linger along the way; it would be nice to take back with her a bunch of wild flowers. She would give them to a waiter, and see that they were put upon their table.