[Illustration: In i-vy, tree, or barn, or tow-er The Owl a-waits the e-ven-ing hour.]

"Oh, you sober old Helen," she said, "you'll be an owl for a thousand years after you die!

Great wreaths and nodding masses of pampas grass were above the doors; a white heron and a rose-colored spoonbill stood together on a large bracket in one corner, and a huge gray owl was perched on what looked like a simple old apple-tree bough, over an inlaid writing-table which stood at an odd slant near one of the windows.

But I made a chintz curtain, which shut off his bed from sight, and really made the room look prettier, for I put it across a corner and had a shelf put up above it, on which Nat's stuffed owl sat.

Owl told him that once.

He was telling Owl about Kiersten, how she wouldn't take him seriously, her smile always for Garystar everything.

Owl's voice was sympathetic but with a dissatisfied edge, as though he were impatient with or imprisoned by his superiority, his tenure at Brown, his aluminum boat, one of the fastest on the sound.

It was years before he understood Owl's jealousy pronouncement.

"Owl Prescott was my stepfather.

She'd come back from Hawaii to Connecticut, pregnant, and eventually married Owl Prescott.

Hell is being in one room with two women, Owl said.

That was another of Owl's sayings; one that Oliver had made his own.

Oliver imagined dark water closing over Owl.

He wondered if he hadn't, at a very young age, taken on responsibility for her problemswith Owl, with him, with life.

He saw Owl overboard, holding his head above the waves.

"Find your father," Owl said.

Owl had said that once.

Owl had done his best for him.

" "She married Owl Prescott, an English professor.

Owl had cautioned him more than once: "Listen to what people say, but pay more attention to what they do."

" Owl's words echoed: "Anger is the outer face of fear.

As he thought and smoked, he looked dreamily at a young owl in a big cage; the owl he had sent home from Paso Robles.

As he thought and smoked, he looked dreamily at a young owl in a big cage; the owl he had sent home from Paso Robles.

Scaring the wolf cub, Scaring the horn-owl, Shaking the snow-wreaths Down from the pine-boughs, Up to the star roof Rang out their song.

They gave an owl-like look to him, an air of omniscience.