The baby bird's breast swelled, it did not know why; and it fluttered from the ground, it did not know how.

"The sun has come out after the rain," it trilled.
"Thank you, sun; thank you, thank you! Oh, mother, did you hear me?
I can sing!" And it floated up, up, up, crying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" to the sun.

"Oh, mother, do you see me?
I am flying!" And being but a baby, it soon was gasping, but still it trilled the same ecstasy, and when it fell panting to earth it still trilled, and the distracted mother called to it to take breath or it would die, but it could not stop.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" it sang to the sun till its little heart burst.
With filmy eyes Tommy searched himself for the little pocket-book in which he took notes of such sad thoughts as these, and in place of the book he found a glove wrapped in silk paper.

He sat there with it in his hand, nodding his head over it so broken-heartedly you could not have believed that he had forgotten it for several days.
Death was still his subject; but it was no longer a bird he saw: it was a very noble young man, and his white, dead face stared at the sky from the bottom of a deep pool.