“She brought him up by hand, and when he died she was miserable. She’s got a long poem that a man called Skelton wrote long ago when English was spelt strangely. It is full of pretty phrases, and it has got a long list of birds’ names; if you’ll listen, she’ll read it to you, she says.” [Illustration: _Reynolds._ DOLORÈS.] Clare spoke eagerly. But she had no need to call the children twice. They gather round any one willingly enough who will read to them. Dolorès looked very small and sad as she sat on a low stool, about to commence reading. There is something you will see, in the manner her little bodice is crossed, that is curiously at one with that lift in her eyebrow. “My bird was a green finch,” she said, “and he had the crossest little eye I’ve ever seen; it was like a sour bead, full of greediness. But all the same I loved him, and I shall never have such another. I shall never, never, have such a dear again. This man Skelton who wrote this poem must have known some little girl who lost a bird she loved, for listen to what he writes about it. It is called _The Boke of Phyllyp Sparowe_, and these are only some of the lines:-- “‘When I remember again How my Phylyp was slain Never half the payne Was between you twain, Pyramus and Thisbe, As then befell to me. I wept and I wayled, The tears down hayled, But nothing it availed To call Philyp again, Whom Gib, our cat, hath slain. Gib, I say, our cat Worried her on that Which I loved best. It cannot be expressed By sorrowful heaviness. It was so prety a fool It wold sit on a stool; It had a velvet cap, And would sit upon my lap, And seek after small wormes And sometymes white bread crommes. Sometimes he wold gasp When he saw a wasp, A fly, or a gnat, He would fly at that; And pretily he wold pant When he saw an ant; Lord, how he wold pry After the butterfly! Lord, how he wold hop After the gressop! And when I sayd, Phyp, Phyp! Then he wold leap and skyp And take me by the lyp. Alas! it will me slo That Phyllyp is gone me fro! For it wold come and go And fly so to and fro, And on me it wold leap When I was asleep, And his fethers shake, Wherewith he wold make Me often for to wake.