Page:The New Monthly Magazine - Volume 095.djvu/86

Rh mother looking more than usually sad; and never did Mrs. Atherton so sweetly smile as when she watched her daughter’s joyous, springing step, and her face beaming with health and happiness.

All through Mary's prattling childhood, and merry, happy girlhood, her supreme delight was to sit by her mother’s side, or to walk with her through the tangled greenwood paths that surrounded their home, now running on before to clear the briars from her way, now loitering behind to pick her a handful of wild strawberries, or a bunch of honeysuckles or violets, and now holding her by the hand, and looking earnestly up into her face, as her mother told her about the birds, and the flowers, and the insects, and the mosses, or related some little tale, short and simple, but to the hearer of thrilling interest. But these stories seldom spoke of the great world, and of its pleasures and attractions; and when they did, they were intended, under a guise adapted to Mary's age and comprehension, to create a dread and fear of it. One of the most intensely interesting of these tales was about a little bird, called Chirpy, who lived with her father and mother, in a nest that was built in an old cherry-tree; and how the cherry-tree stood in a garden, where she had everything that the heart of little bird could desire—nice strawberries, and raspberries, and cherries, and currants, and clear pure water. And the garden was surrounded by a high wall, which Chirpy's father and mother told her she must never on any account go over. And how curious and anxious she was to know what could be on the other side. And how she thought one day that, at all events, it could be no harm just to fly to the top of the wall, and peep over, as that could not be doing any thing wrong. And how she did fly up and peep, and saw on the other side—oh! such a beautiful garden, ten thousand times more beautiful-looking than her own; and there were fountains and streams in it, not of pure clear water, but red, and purple, and golden-coloured; and there were fruits, which looked so luscious and tempting, that she thought she would rather have one of them than all the cherries or currants she had ever seen in her life. And the garden was full of such beautiful birds! not with plain brown feathers, like hers, but dressed in magnificent plumage—scarlet, and green, and blue, and purple, and all the colours of the rainbow, and looking so merry and happy! And how one bird, more splendid than all the rest, and with the most beautiful eyes Chirpy had ever beheld, saw her as she peeped over, and begged her to come down, and said what a pity it was that she should stay in such an old humdrum place as that was on the other side of the wall; and what a handsome creature she would be if she would come down and drink their water, and eat their fruits, and have bright gay feathers like they had. And how Chirpy said, that her father and mother had told her she must not, and she did not like to disobey them. And how the beautiful bird laughed at her, and said that now she was a great bird and had wings of her own, she must have a will of her own, too, and not always be doing what her mother told her. And how Chirpy thought it could be no harm to go down for five minutes, but she wouldn't stay longer—no, not for the world! And she flew down, and the gay birds all came around her, and gave her the fruits and the coloured water, and she ate and drank, and thought they were so nice that she could never have enough; and she was merry an happy, and wished she had not stayed so long in that ugly old place on the other side of the wall; and she sang,