a summer rain, she heard a strange fluttering and scratching in the chimney, and she called to her nurse, and said,

[10]

[10]

"Biddy! what is that funny noise up there?"

Biddy listened a moment, and said,

"Sure it's nothing but a stray rook. Now he's quite gone away—so go to sleep wid ye, my darling!"

Minnie tried to go to sleep, like a good girl; but after awhile she heard that sound again, and presently something came fluttering and scratching right down into the grate, and out into the room! Minnie called again to Biddy; but Biddy was tired and sleepy, and wouldn't wake up. It was so dark that Minnie could see nothing, and she felt a little strange; but she was no coward, and as the bird seemed very quiet, she went to sleep again after awhile, and dreamed that great flocks of rooks were flying over her, slowly, slowly, and making the darkness with their jet black wings.

She woke very early in the morning, and the first thing she saw was a great gray owl,[11] perched on the bed-post at her feet, staring at her with his big, round eyes. He did not fly off when she started up in bed, but only ruffled up his feathers, and said—

[11]

"Who!"

Minnie had never seen an owl before; but she was not afraid, and she answered merrily,

"You'd better say 'Who!' Why who are you, yourself, you queer old Wonder-Eyes?"

Then she woke Biddy, who was dreadfully frightened, and called up the butler, who caught the owl, and put him in a cage.

This strange bird was always rather ill-natured and gruff, to everybody but Minnie—he seemed to take kindly to her, from the first. So he was called "Minnie's pet," and nobody disputed her right to him. He would take food from her little hand and never peck her; he would perch on her shoulder and let her take him on an airing round the garden; and sometimes he would sit and watch her studying her 

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