of my American guests said he was uncanny and called him "The Goblin
Robin." No one had ever seen a thing so curiously human--so much more
than mere bird.

When I took callers to the rose-garden he was exquisitely polite. He
always came when I stood under my tree and called--but he never at such
times MET me with his rush to the little door. He would perch near me
and talk but there was a difference. Certain exquisite intimate charms
he kept for me alone.

I wondered when he would begin to sing. One morning the sun being strong
enough to pierce through the leaves of my tree I had a large Japanese
tent umbrella arranged so that it shaded my table as I wrote. Suddenly I
heard a robin song which sounded as if it were being trilled from some
tree at a little distance from where I sat. It was so pretty that I
leaned forward to see exactly where the singer perched. I made a
delicious discovery. He was not on a tree at all. He was perched upon
the very end of one of the bamboo ribs of my big flowery umbrella. He
was my own Robin and there he sat singing to me his first tiny song--
showing me that he had found out how to do it.

The effect of singing at a distance was produced by the curious fact
that he was singing WITH HIS BILL CLOSED, his darling scarlet throat
puffed out and tremulous with the captive trills.

Perhaps a robin's first song is always of this order. I do not know. I
only know that this was his "earlier manner." My enraptured delight I
expressed to him in my most eloquent phrases. I praised him--I flattered
him. I made him believe that no robin had really ever sung before. He
was much pleased and flew down on to the table to hear all about it and