"You are not happy, my birdie, I fear. Neither would I be, cooped up in a cage like that," and so she opened wide the door and out I flew, never to be a prisoner again--till, well, I will not speak of that just here, but keep it for the close. What famous times we did have after that, to be sure. Whenever I felt lonesome down I'd fly upon the desk where my mistress sat writing. She would pretend not to see me till I had hopped upon the very sheet over which her pen was gliding. "Why birdie!" she would then cry, as though very much astonished, and off I'd fly, as she made a dash for me, to the window where I would hide behind the ruffle of the sash curtain. "_Cheep, cheep_," I'd cry, just as you little folks cry "whoop," when all is ready, "_cheep, cheep_." "Where can my birdie be?" she would say after awhile, dropping her pen. "Where can she be?" and then she would look here and there, till presently approaching my hiding-place, out I'd fly, with a gurgle, into an adjoining room, where I'd again crouch behind the curtain. Between you and me I believe she knew all the time where I was hiding and only pretended to search for me here and there. Anyway it was capital fun, and I never tired of it, though mistress did. "I can't play with you any more," she would say, "you quite tire me out," and then she would go to writing again and so our game of "hide and seek" would end for that day. "Everything needs companionship," she said one morning to my master, "birds, children and men," and so that day he brought home a large wooden cage in which was as handsome a canary bird as you would want to see. That was Jim, and oh, how happy I was, when, a few days after, he asked me to be his mate. I said "yes," almost before he had got the song out of his mouth--I didn't know what a tyrant and bully he was till afterward, you know--and so we went pretty soon to housekeeping in the wooden cage.