One morning—­a heavenly sunny one—­I was conversing with him by the Laurette Messimys again and he was evidently much pleased with the things I said.  Perhaps he liked my hat which was a large white one with a wreath of roses round its crown.  I saw him look at it and I gently hinted that I had worn it in the hope that he would approve.  I had broken off a handful of coral pink Laurettes and was arranging them idly when—­he spread his wings in a sudden upward flight—­a tiny swift flight which ended—­among the roses on my hat—­the very hat on my head.

Did I make myself still then?  Did I stir by a single hairbreadth?  Who does not know?  I scarcely let myself breathe.  I could not believe that such a thing of pure joy could be true.

But in a minute I realized that he at least was not afraid to move.  He was perfectly at home.  He hopped about the brim and examined the roses with delicate pecks.  That I was under the hat apparently only gave him confidence.  He knew me as well as that.  He stayed until he had learned all he wished to know about garden hats and then he lightly flew away.

From that time each day drew us closer to each other.  He began to perch on twigs only a few inches from my face and listen while I whispered to him—­yes, he listened and made answer with chirps.  Nothing else would describe it.  As I wrote he would alight on my manuscript paper and try to read.  Sometimes I thought he was a little offended because he found my handwriting so bad that he could not understand it.  He would take crumbs out of my hand, he would alight on my chair or my shoulder.  The instant I opened the little door in the leaf-covered garden wall I would be greeted by the darling little rush of wings and he was beside me.  And he always came from nowhere and disappeared into space.

That, through the whole summer—­was his rarest fascination.  Perhaps he was not a real robin.  Perhaps he was a fairy.  Who knows?  Among the many house parties staying with me he was a subject of thrilled interest.  People knew of him who had not seen him and it became a custom with callers to say:  “May we go into the rose-garden and see The Robin?” One 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.