I could see it hourly from my window, the overhanging leaf, the opalized lustre of the brooding bird, as if a store of sunshine was shivered, and falling over her feathers, then momentarily hidden as the swinging leaf intervened. More solid pursuits were forgotten or for the time regarded as of little importance; each delicate outline became familiar; the brooding leaf assumed a personality; it was a guardian of the home, vitalized, spiritualized, protective. It seemed to change position as the sun made the need apparent, shielding the little one in the long waiting days, so patient and passive in the sweet expectancy of nearing motherhood. My memory pictures her still, while a more tangible photograph upon my desk gives permanence to my "bird of the musical wing" as she brooded over the apple-tree nest. With this home as a focus, lawn and garden seemed to hold the sunshine in suspension; uplifted grasses gave it recognition in smiling approval; shadows were invested with humane and beneficent attributes, and the very air was radiant with scent and gracious influence. Sometimes the bird came to my window, her beak clicking against the glass in a vain effort to probe the flowers within. There were visits, too, to the piazza, when the family were gathered there, poising above the embroidered flowers upon a lady's slipper and trying persistently to taste their illusive sweetness. Thrice upon the fourth day of sitting she improved the nest with an extra beakful of cotton, holding it firmly for five or ten minutes before it was inwrought. This was repeated after two weeks when there was a decided change--the little, warm breast was pressed less closely against the nest treasures. Some amazing instinct, directly opposed to that dear experience by which _we_ find a short path to a long wandering, taught her that their increased fragility would yield to her full weight, and her touch was of exquisite softness. When three full weeks had passed a homely baby no bigger than a honey bee lay in the nest, a one day's advantage kept to the end, and noticeable in both size and strength. The next morning this mite was duplicated, their whole bodies trembling with every heart beat. Life became now a problem of supply and demand, only a clearer expression of the one that has from all time agitated humanity. Then began that marvel of marvels, the feeding of the newly hatched birds. It was hardly worth while to question the wisdom of the process, though I confess that after each feeding I expected only two little mangled corpses would remain!