Cheri is the Canary-bird,--a yellow bird with a white tail, when the cat leaves him any tail at all. He came as a gift, and I welcomed him, but without gratitude. For a gift is nothing. Always behind the gift stands the giver, and under the gift lies the motive. The gift itself has no character. It may be a blunder, a bribe, an offering, according to the nature and design of the giver; and you are outraged, or magnanimous, or grateful. Cheri came to me with no love-token under his soft wings,--only the "good riddance" of his heartless master. Those little black eyes had twinkled, those shining silken feathers had gleamed, that round throat had waved with melody in vain. He had worn his welcome out. Even the virtues which should have throbbed, tender and all-embracing, under priestly vestments, had no tenderness, no embrace for him,--only a mockery and a prophecy, a cold and cynical prediction that I should soon tire of his shrill voice. Yes, Cheri, your sweet silver trills, your rippling June-brook warbles, were to him only a shrew's scolding. I took the bird wrathfully, his name had been Cherry, and rechristened him on the spot Cheri, in anticipation of the new life that was to dawn upon him, no longer despised Cherry, but Cheri, my cherished one. He has been with me now nearly a year, and every trick of his voice and head and tail is just as fresh, graceful, and charming as on the first day of his arrival. He is a constant recreation and delight. I put him in my own room, and went up to look at him two or three times the first evening. Every time I looked he would be quite still, but his little black beads of eyes shone wide open in the candle-light, and I recalled how Chaucer's "Smale foules maken melodie That slepen alle night with open eye," and reflected that Cheri certainly made melodie enough in the daytime to be ranked with the poetic tribe; but one night, after he had been here long enough to have worn away his nervous excitement, I happened to go into the room very softly, and the black beads had disappeared. The tiny head had disappeared, too, and only a little round ball of feathers was balanced on his perch. Then I remembered that chickens have a way of putting their heads in their pockets when they go to sleep, and poetry yielded to poultry, Cheri stepped out of Chaucer, and took his place in the hencoop.