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At the present moment he had on his head a Scotch cap with a grouse's feather in it, and he was dressed in a velvet shooting-jacket and dark knickerbockers; and was certainly, in this costume, as handsome a man as any woman would wish to see. And there was, too, a look of breeding about him which had come to him, no doubt, from the royal Finns of old, which ever served him in great stead.

He was creeping through a thicket, making no noise at all, when what should he see but that sly old Mother Grouse, with all her eleven children! They were very young, were old Mother Grouse's children; and they hadn't yet learned to fly. And there they were, all on the ground, with the proud old lady in their midst. Tommy Fox was so pleased that he almost laughed out loud.

Ye didn't expect to find a supper here to-night, young man, did ye?" and he looked quizzically at Reynolds. "Indeed I didn't," was the emphatic reply. "Neither did ye imagine that it 'ud be a grouse's bones ye'd be pickin'. Why, it's no tellin' where that bird was three days ago. It may have been fifty miles or more away, fer all we know. But it's here now, isn't it?"

It was almost as loud as thunder, and it seemed to Tommy that the ground was rising right up in front of him. He was so startled that he fell over backward. And his heart thumped and pounded against his ribs. The next moment Tommy Fox felt very sheepish, for he realized that the noise was nothing but the beating of old Mother Grouse's wings against the air.

We withdrew a little space and ate deliberately, watching the bird and the dog with an interest that grew keener and keener as the meal progressed, while Old Ben stood like a rock, and the grouse's eye shone steadily out of the tangle of brakes. Nor did either move so much as an eyelid while we ate, and Ben's master smoked his pipe with quiet confidence.

She had destroyed all the scanty store of primroses along the brook; gathered rushes, begun to plait them, and thrown them away; she had found a grouse's nest among the dead fern, and, contrary to the most solemn injunctions of uncle and keeper, enforced by the direst threats, had purloined and broken an egg; and still dinner-time delayed.

There is no bard in all the choir, . . . Not one of all can put in verse, Or to this presence could rehearse The sights and voices ravishing The boy knew on the hills in spring, When pacing through the oaks he heard Sharp queries of the sentry-bird, The heavy grouse's sudden whir, The rattle of the kingfisher." EMERSON'S Harp.

"Then for a sartainty I'll shoot Grouse, and wallop Grouse's master, and that 'ill be two right things done one mornin'; the first would be a most darned right one, any how, and kind too! for then A would be forced to git himself a good, nice setter dog, and not go shootin' over a great old fat bustin' pinter, as isn't worth so much as I be to hunt birds!"

For the first time the grouse's cheery dance was unwelcome for it meant the closing of our books, the loss of our pleasant companions, the surrender of our leisure, and a return to the mud of the fields. It was especially hard to say good-bye to Ella and Maud, for though they were in no sense sweethearts they were very pleasant companions.

Nay, worse than that; those very powers and supremacies that he had thought were his protection were they not, also, a part of the Snare? His culture and his artistry, his visions and his exaltations what had they been but a lure for the female? The iris of the burnished dove, the ruff about the grouse's neck, the gold and purple of the butterfly's wing!