“But you expected to sell that one, didn’t you?” she asked.

“Mrs. Smith said maybe she’d take it when she came home from Boston, but I dare say she’d change her mind and get one there.”

“How much were you going to ask for him?”

“Well, I wouldn’t sell Barry for less than ten dollars, or rather, I wouldn’t have sold him,” and he ran out to the stable.

Mrs. Morris sat on the hall chair, patting me as I rubbed against her, in rather an absentminded way.  Then she got up and went into her husband’s study, and told him what Carl had done.

Mr. Morris seemed very pleased to hear about it, but when his wife asked him to do something to make up the loss to the boy, he said:  “I had rather not do that.  To encourage a child to do a kind action, and then to reward him for it, is not always a sound principle to go upon.”

But Carl did not go without his reward.  That evening, Mrs. Montague’s coachman brought a note to the house addressed to Mr. Carl Morris.  He read it aloud to the family.

My dear Carl:  I am charmed with my little bird, and he has whispered to me one of the secrets of your room.  You want fifteen dollars very much to buy something for it.  I am sure you won’t be offended with an old friend for supplying you the means to get this something.

Ada Montague.

“Just the thing for my stationary tank for the goldfish,” exclaimed Carl.  “I’ve wanted it for a long time;—­it isn’t good to keep them in globes; but how in the world did she find out?  I’ve never told any one.”

Mrs. Morris smiled, and said, “Barry must have told her,” as she took the money from Carl to put away for him.

Mrs. Montague got to be very fond of her new pet.  She took care of him herself, and I have heard her tell Mrs. Morris most wonderful stories about him—­stories so wonderful that I should say they were not true if I did not how intelligent dumb creatures get to be under kind treatment.

She only kept him in his cage at night, and when she began looking for him at bedtime to put him there, he always hid himself.  She would search a short time, and then sit down, and he always came out of his hiding-place, chirping in a saucy way to make her look at him.

She said that he seemed to take delight in teasing her.  Once when he was in the drawing-room with her, she was called away to speak to some one at the telephone.  When she came back, she found that one of the servants had come into the room and left the door open leading to a veranda.

The trees outside were full of yellow birds, and she was in despair, thinking that Barry had flown out with them.  She looked out, but could not see him.  Then, lest he had not left the room, she got a chair and carried it about, standing on it to examine the walls, and see if Barry was hidden among the pictures and bric-a-brac.  But no Barry was there.  She at last sank down, exhausted, on a sofa.  She heard a wicked, little peep, and looking up, saw Barry sitting on one of the rounds of the chair that she had been carrying about to look for him.  He had been there all the time.  She was so glad to see him, that she never thought of scolding him.