" "Wal," he bent forward, and his face came out of the shadows; we could see that his pale blue eyes, red-rimmed and short-sighted, were suffused with tender light, and his pendulous lower lip was a-quiver with emotion; even the hair of his headtow-coloured and worn à la Pompadourseemed to bristle with excitement, "Wal," he whispered "it'sit's Miss Birdie Dutton!"

Miss Birdie Dutton!

Mebbe, gen'lemen, ye've heard Miss Birdie sing?" I shook my head regretfully, but Ajax spoke enthusiastically of the lady's powers as a vocalist.

" "She's a pernounced brunette," explained the poet; "and her name is Birdie.

" "You're dead right," murmured the disciple; "but look at here: when I call on Miss Birdie, she sez, 'Mister Jasperson,' or, mebbe, 'Mister Jasper, please be seated, an' let me take your hat.'

Miss Birdie ain't done no harder work than smackin' a kid that needs it.

Why, Miss Birdie was a-tellin' me" I ventured to interrupt him.

" "Mis' Dutton," said Jasperson solemnly, "is now a-singing in the heavenly choir, an' bein' dead I can't say nothing; but, gen'lemen, ye'll understand me when I tell ye that Miss Birdie never got her fine looks from her maw.

"Say," said he; "if you'll help me out, I'll write a letter to Miss Birdie this very night.

"To Miss Birdie Dutton.

"Birdie knows I don't drink," stammered our hired man, "but she thinks I'd ought to take the pledge as an example.

I'd ought to have told Birdie that your affairs didn't concern her; I'd ought to have said that you was honnerable gen'lemen whom I'm proud to call my intimate friends; I'd ought to have said a thousand things, but I sot there, and said-nothin'!"

The little dandy in his smug black garments with his diamond stud gleaming in the ivy-bosomed shirt (his rings had been given to Miss Birdie), with his features wilting like the wild pansies in the lapel of his coat, dwindled to an amorphous streak beneath the keen glance of my burly brother.

Only" "Only I suppose you are put out because you haven't had a postcard from Birdie Lee!" challenged Joe.

Birdie Lee said she'd never forget what they suffered.

My former readers will well remember some members of that organizationC.C. Piper, or "Gloomy," as he was called when not referred to as just "C.C."; Birdie Lee, a pretty, vivacious girl; Mabel Pierce, a new member of the company; Henry Robertson, who played juvenile "leads"; Miss Shay, and others in whom you are more or less interested.

" "Hasn't Birdie Lee written yet?" asked Joe.

"Oh, not in such an awful hurry," he answered with a laugh, as Birdie Lee came out of a dressing room, smiling rosily at him.

called Birdie Lee to Blake, as she waved her hand to him.

Birdie shall abide in the paternal nest, and sing the old home-songs, and walk in the old home-ways, until she has a nice new nest of her own.

"Look, Souwanas," said Minnehaha, "the poor birdie has no feathers on its neck or head.

"But now don't you want to buy a bonnet or a cloak to carry home to your wife?" "Well, you're whistlin' now, birdie; that's my intention; set 'em all out."

When they were seated in their private parlor, Le Croix said: "Birdie, I am sorry that we attended that meeting this morning.

Fly, birdie, fly.

Madeleine Bemelmans (W) & Barbara Marciano (C); 22Jul69; R465483. Watch the birdie.