The young man removed a fine engraved cornelian, set in gold, and handed it to Mrs. Tomkin-Jones. 'Your arms, I presume?' she said, looking at it. 'Certainly――a chevron between three choughs. The crest a Cornish chough. Though, I protest, I have not the smallest idea what the bird is――whether it exist, or is extinct as the dodo, or fabulous as the wyvern.' 'But I know it,' said Winefred. 'Martlets have, I believe, no feet,' said Mrs. Jones. 'But these have legs and beaks of sealing-wax scarlet,' said Winefred. 'Otherwise they are as black as ravens. They are clever birds and build in our cliffs. We had one about a year ago, but a cat got at it. He was tame and loved to be stroked and caressed and talked to. He would run up a ladder like a squirrel. But oh! he was mischievous, once he got at mother's box――――' 'Do you mean your poor deceased mother's jewel-case, or only the workbox of your nurse?' asked the widow. 'I mean where were the tapes and pins and buttons,' answered Winefred, colouring. 'Really,' said the young man, 'I protest that you make me desirous to see one of these birds. Conceive my ignorance in not knowing what a chough was, and yet bearing three of them on my shield and one on my helm.' 'It would be pure,' said Mrs. Tomkin-Jones, 'to have one, tame, in the square garden. I suppose that it would remain there, were the wing clipped. But there are cats.' 'Oh!' exclaimed Winefred, 'our bird would have been able to keep away from the cat if it had not been ill, but it had swallowed a brass thimble and was heavy and drooping. If you had it in the house, nothing would content it but to trip upstairs to the very garret.' 'Elle est ingenue, n'est pas?' An aside of Mrs. Tomkin-Jones to Mr. Wardroper. Then, 'It would be really too charming to have one of these birds in the garden.' 'I can get you a pair,' said Winefred. 'When I go home I will see to it. You can have only young choughs, but their beaks and legs are orange the first year; it is not till the second that they become scarlet. The wild, full-grown birds cannot be caught. They are becoming scarce. I think that the jackdaws are driving them.' 'How gratified Sir Barnaby will be!' observed the relict of Dr. Jones to young Wardroper. 'How it will amuse him to see in the flesh hopping about in the garden the choughs that are engraved on his plate, and worn on his livery. Ah! here we are.'