where she was. When she did that, he perched just as closely as
he dared; and while they both rested, he sang to her a soft
little whispered love song, deep in his throat; and with every
note he gently edged nearer. She turned her head from him, and
although she was panting for breath and palpitant with fear, the
Cardinal knew that he dared not go closer, or she would dash away
like the wild thing she was. The next time she took wing, she
found him so persistently in her course that she turned sharply
and fled panting to the sumac. When this had happened so often
that she seemed to recognize the sumac as a place of refuge, the
Cardinal slipped aside and spent all his remaining breath in an
exultant whistle of triumph, for now he was beginning to see his
way. He dashed into mid-air, and with a gyration that would have
done credit to a flycatcher, he snapped up a gadfly that should
have been more alert.

With a tender "Chip!" from branch to branch, slowly, cautiously,
he came with it. Because he was half starved himself, he knew
that she must be almost famished. Holding it where she could
see, he hopped toward her, eagerly, carefully, the gadfly in his
beak, his heart in his mouth. He stretched his neck and legs to
the limit as he reached the fly toward her. What matter that she
took it with a snap, and plunged a quarter of a mile before
eating it? She had taken food from him! That was the beginning.
Cautiously he impelled her toward the sumac, and with untiring
patience kept her there the remainder of the day. He carried her
every choice morsel he could find in the immediate vicinity of
the sumac, and occasionally she took a bit from his beak, though
oftenest he was compelled to lay it on a limb beside her. At
dusk she repeatedly dashed toward the underbrush; but the