Francesca, looking up with woeful eyes, beheld it, and, opening the
window, softly took it in. "Poor birdie!" she whispered, striving to
warm it in her gentle hand and against her delicate cheek,--"poor little
wanderer!--didst thou think to find thy mate, and build thy tiny nest,
and be a happy mother through the long bright summer-time? Ah, my pet,
what a sad close is this to all these pleasant dreams!"
The frail little creature could not eat even the bits of crumbs which
she put into its mouth, nor taste a drop of water. All her soothing
presses failed to bring warmth and life to the tiny frame that presently
stretched itself out, dead,--all its sweet songs sung, its brief, bright
existence ended forever. "Ah, my little birdie, it is all over,"
whispered Francesca, as she laid it softly down, and unconsciously
lifted her hand to her own head with a self-pitying gesture that was
sorrowful to behold.
"Like me," she did not say; yet a penetrating eye looking at them--the
slight bird lying dead, its brilliant plumage already dimmed, the young
girl gazing at it--would perceive that alike these two were fitted for
the warmth and sunshine, would perceive that both had been thwarted and
defrauded of their fair inheritance, would perceive that one lay spent
and dead in its early spring. What of the other?
"Aunt Alice," said Francesca a few days after that, "can you go to New
York this afternoon or to-morrow morning?"
"Certainly, dear.
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