Later on, food was provided for it, which it pecked up without the least shyness. Since then it has established itself on a very firm clawing, if I may use the term, as a necessary inmate of the house. Fluttering through the passages it follows the maids from room to room in the morning and shows the most lively interest in their work while beds are being made or tables dusted. It has the most perfect trustfulness, not merely allowing itself to be handled, but coming to perch on a wrist or shoulder as if it had belonged there from, time immemorial. It really is a pretty thing to have about the house, an embodiment of gentleness and kindness, and, so far as a mere human being can judge, of an almost dog-like gratitude and affection. I have seen a bullfinch swell up in a passionate agitation of love when from its cage it beheld its dear mistress enter the room, but it had never occurred to me before this to attribute such a feeling to a dove. I ought, I suppose, to have known better, as I now do. At this very moment it is cooing away like mad at its declaration of undying love from its favourite haunt on the mantelpiece of one of the bedrooms. But it has another utterance which it employs at rare intervals. This is a sort of high-pitched laugh thoroughly unsuited to its softness, a most cynical and derisive sound which in so kind a beak seems to have neither meaning nor purpose. But I overlook its rare laugh in consideration of the cooing with which it blesses us and the general friendship which it has vowed to this house. * * * * * RECALLED. [Illustration: The second great sale on behalf of the wounded will be held at Christie's (8 King Street, St. James' Square) from the 6th to the 19th of April, and from the 26th to the 28th. The entire proceeds--no charge for their services being made by Messrs. Christie, Manson & Woods--will be handed over to the British Red Cross Society and the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. The exhibits are still on view to-day (April 5th).] * * * * * [Illustration: _Husband._ "Darlint, 'tis yer own Michael that's come home to yez!" _Wife._ "Sure, Mike, ye're not afther thrying anny of thim personating thricks on me, are yez?"] * * * * * THE BOBBERY PACK. Andy Hartigan's dead and gone Over the hills and further yet, But he drank good port and his red face shone Like a cider apple of Somerset. Ten strange couples o' hounds he had (Gaunt old brutes that had hunted fox Back in the days when NOAH was a lad), Touched in the bellows and gone at the hocks-- Hounds he'd stole from a Harrier pack, Hounds he'd borrowed an' begged an' found, Grey an' yellow an' tan an' black, Every conceivable kind o' hound.