A BIRD STORY. Visible from my study-window, and less than a stone's throw away, is a cottage, all tree-embowered and vine-covered, which its owners call "The Nest." All over the house, wherever a bird-box can be placed, there you are sure to find one. These little homes nestle under the eaves among the supporting brackets; they hide under the nooks of the gables; they are perched above the windows; they are indeed to be found wherever you would be likely to look for them, and in a good many places where you would never think of looking. Besides these bird-boxes on the house, there are bird-boxes in the trees, bird-boxes airily placed on high poles--bird-boxes in all forms, from the plain four-sided salt-box to the elaborate Swiss chalet and the pretentious be-spired and be-columned meeting-house. Then there are bird-cages--pretty brass cages, with tarlatan petticoats to keep the seeds from flying out, and tied with such dainty bows of ribbon that one has no need to be told there is a woman in the house; there are capacious cages in which brown mocking-birds sit all day long echoing back the other birds' songs they hear; there are dainty glass cages from Venice, in which Java sparrows carry on their ceaseless love-making, billing and cooing for hours and hours, as if all life to them was an interminable honeymoon. There is also a great white parrot, who, perched in a brass ring, mutters and mutters to himself for hours, and hums snatches of tunes, and calls imaginary dogs and visionary cats; and when he sees a certain manly form coming up the garden-walk is wont to cry out in a miserable mockery of tenderness, "Oh, my darling! I'm _so_ glad to see you!" and then smack his bill as near like a kiss as he can, and chuckle and laugh and turn somersaults, and otherwise disport himself as parrots do when they are pleased. And while all this is going on there comes running out of the house a pretty little figure in a fresh muslin dress and with outstretched arms; and, strangely enough, she says just what Polly has said, and there is a kiss that is no imitation, and a responsive kiss that fairly puts Polly to shame; but the bird chuckles and laughs nevertheless. When all this takes place--and it is no more of an event than the daily home-coming of our good neighbor and dear friend Arthur Sterling, Esq., barrister-at-law,--when this home-coming takes place, all the birds at The Nest break forth into a merrier song--get so enthusiastic in their pipings that you'd think, to hear them, that they would split their throats; and still gladder and sweeter and merrier than their song is the voice of our dear neighbor's wife, Mistress May Sterling, who pours forth, in a ceaseless chattering song, a whole day's accumulation of love--yes indeed, a whole lifetime's accumulation; and while the rippling flow goes on their two fond hearts sing louder with joy than any birds would ever dare to think of singing.