as if appealing to their indulgence on account of the cold that I had caught in the rain-storm, I commenced by whistling, then I warbled, then I diverted my audience with a few trills, and finally I set to singing in earnest, vociferously, like a Spanish mule-driver in a gale of wind.
The little pie began to back away from me, and the louder I sang the further she retreated, at first with an air of surprise, which quickly changed to one of stupefaction, and finally terminated in a look of terror accompanied by deep disgust. She kept walking around me in a circle, as a cat walks around a piece of bacon, sizzling hot, against which she has burned her nose, but of which she thinks she would like to try another taste, notwithstanding. I saw how my experiment was turning out and wished to carry it to a conclusion, so, the more the poor marquise fretted and fumed, the more deliriously did I sing. She stood my melodious efforts for twenty-five minutes, but at last she succumbed and flew noisily away and retired to her palace of verdure. As for the turtle-dove, she had gone off into a sound slumber almost at the very beginning.
"Delightful effect of harmony!" I thought. "Oh, my dear native marsh! Oh, maternal porringer! More than ever am I firmly resolved to return to you!"
Just as I was poising myself in readiness for flight the turtle-dove opened her eyes.
"Farewell," she said, "pretty and tiresome stranger! My name is Gourouli; don't forget me!"
"Fair Gourouli," I replied, "you are gentle, kind and charming; I would like to live and die for you,
