“Poor, dear Caro!” she said, holding him at arm’s length, “the horrid police would kill you, if they knew you were alive, and so I must keep you shut up within doors. Poor, dear Caro!” And this was true. In Munich aged dogs are not allowed to live; and Caro is toothless and nearly blind. But his heart is as young as ever; and his tail—oh! how much expression there is in a dog’s tail. How it wags to and fro! How it whisks up and down! How it thumps on the floor! Moida sometimes, for fun, would try to hold fast Caro’s tail while she spoke endearing words to him. But in vain. No sooner would she open her lips than away it went, ten times quicker than the pendulum of a clock, and as impossible to clench as if ’twere a bit of machinery driven back and forth by steam-power. Nothing could better show the difference between Walburga and her friend than a glance at the different books which each of them reads. In Walburga’s sleeping-chamber, on a table close by her bed, lie two well-fingered volumes: one is _Master Eckhart, the Father of German Mystics_; the other is _Blessed Henry Suso’s Little Book of Eternal Wisdom_. For a number of years these have been well-nigh her constant companions, and she knows them almost by heart. More than once have they inspired her to renewed effort when she felt disheartened, as well as lightened the cross which afflicted her. “The swiftest steed to carry us to perfection is suffering,” says Eckhart; and these words Walburga often repeats to herself. But in Moida’s apartment, instead of the mystics we find a song-book, an arithmetic, and the Regensburg book of cookery. While Caro was frisking about and yelping, the nightingale, as we have already observed, was warbling a song for its mistress, who stood listening with a pensive air. “You shall never die in a cage,” she murmured presently. “’Tis a shame to keep you even one day a prisoner.” “How so?” exclaimed Moida, who had quick ears, and was a mortal foe to anything like mere sentimentality. “Are not birds created for our pleasure? And you take such care of yours! Why, I’m sure he is quite as happy as if he were flying about in the groves, hunting here and there for food, chased by other birds, and journeying hundreds of miles to find a warm climate in winter; whereas you give your pet plenty to eat—I sometimes think too much (Moida was economical)—and whenever it is cold your room is turned into a hot-house to please him.” “Ah! but, Moida dear,” answered Walburga, “he has no playmate, no other little bird to love; and what is life without love?” “Well, he loves you, doesn’t he?” “Yes, and very much. But that is not the kind of love I mean. He has no mate to sing to. I am sure, in the song he is giving us now, he is sighing and pining for some other pretty bird whom he might kiss and caress and woo.”