Page:Maud Howe - Atlanta in the South.djvu/42

 a half-impatient sigh came and stood beside the two culprits. General Jackson looked rather shy, and beat a hasty retreat under Margaret's chair. The young sculptor added the worm to the small bill of the father bird, and placed him in an appropriate attitude by the edge of the nest. Then she laughed.

"Why, you little stupid thing, the birds are not out of the shells yet. What does the father bird bring the worm for?"

"For de mudder," answered the child promptly, with a shrewd glance at General Ruysdale's sober face.

"Is n't he bright, papa?"

"I suppose so, my child; but have you been modelling playthings all day, when your Atalanta is in such a condition?"

Margaret rose, and standing on tiptoe, kissed her father's careworn forehead, mutely asking forgiveness for a neglected duty.

Both the generals soon left her; and when Philip Rondelet, now a frequent visitor at the house, came into the studio half an hour later, he found Margaret standing at the window with her bird's nest in her hand, looking out into the deepening afternoon sky. He stood watching her a few minutes before he spoke.

"Mademoiselle, what troubles you? You are sad this afternoon."