"I hope I know better than a bird," I replied, rather piqued at the comparison, "and that was a very foolish bird not to take to the cage where you had put it—so kind of you."
"Very; yet, strange to say, it liked its cage and its captor as little as you on the contrary seem to fancy yours."
"Yes, but it is scarcely worth while putting or keeping me in a cage,
Cornelius; I am very useless; I can't even sing—not a bit."
"Never mind," he replied, smiling, "I could better dispense with all the birds of the air than with you, my pet."
I thought it was very kind of Cornelius to say so, and to prefer me to nightingales, larks, black-birds, thrushes, and the whole sweet-singing race. I felt cheerful, happy, almost merry, and we were talking together gaily enough when the door opened, and Kate entered.
She had left me plunged in apathetic despondency; on seeing me chatting with her brother in as free and friendly a fashion as if nothing had happened, she looked bewildered. She came forward in total silence, and behind her came Miriam, who closed the door and looked at us calmly through all her evident wonder.
"It's a very wet night," observed Kate, sitting down opposite us and looking at me very hard.
"Is it?" said Cornelius, rising to give Miriam a chair, then returning to me.
"Very," rejoined his sister, who could not take her eyes from me, as, with the secure familiarity of an indulged child, I untwined one of his dark locks to its full extent, observing—
"It is too long; let me cut it off with Kate's scissors."