All this warm weather I sit out of doors in the plantations; just on one side of my seat is a filbert tree, the branches of which spread quite across my feet, and on these branches every day comes a young red-breast. First of all he appeared at a distance, then he came nearer, then he came close home, and now, the moment I call “Bobby,” he comes.... He comes on my feet and my gown, feeds almost on my hand (not quite), and has by example tamed his papa and one or two of his brothers and sisters, who come like him and feed from a board on the tree, quite close to me; but they do not, like my own Bobby, come when they are called. Is this usual in the summer? I know they are tame in the winter; but this is quite a young bird--has never known cold or hunger. He had not a red feather in his breast a fortnight ago. He likes very much to be talked to, in a soft, monotonous, caressing tone--“Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!”--and turns his little head in the prettiest attitudes of listening that you can imagine, and generally finishes by taking two or three flights across me, so close as almost to touch my face. MARY RUSSELL MITFORD: _Letter to Sir William Elford_, in the former’s ‘Life,’ by L’Estrange. * * * * * [Sidenote: Dogs and geraniums, in later life.] Her dogs and her geraniums were her great glories. She used to write me long letters about Fanchon, a dog whose personal acquaintance I had made some time before, while on a visit to her cottage. Every virtue under heaven she attributed to that canine individual; and I was obliged to allow in my return letters, that, since our planet began to spin, nothing comparable to Fanchon had ever run on four legs. I had also known Flush, the ancestor of Fanchon, intimately, and had been accustomed to hear wonderful things of that dog; but Fanchon had graces and genius unique. JAMES T. FIELDS: ‘Yesterdays with Authors.’ * * * * * [Sidenote: Removal from Bertram House.]