Then, raising her heavy eyes, she saw, suspended from a high window, a small wire cage, and in it—her long-lost mate!
He was resting on a low perch, with his poor aching head beneath his wing; his pretty brown feathers were no longer smoothly plumed, but hung ragged and tattered around his wasted form, so different to the bright, bonnie bird of the long-ago! But she heeded not the change; to her he was as beautiful, ay, and more dear than ever, so, flying up, she clung with eager feet to the cruel bars which kept her from him, and, pressing her beak as close as possible to the cage, she murmured,—
'I am here, love!'
At the sound of that sweet voice, so well remembered by the captive, he raised his drooped head, and, gazing at her with all the old loving tenderness, whispered feebly,—
'Is it you, Jenny? Ah, I knew you would come!'
And every evening found her there. Patiently would she stay near the prisoner throughout the dark watches of the night, cheering her loved one because she was near; but when the grey dawn came stealing over the skies, away she would fly back to the nest in the oak, and during the day would carefully tend her little ones, fulfilling thus her double duty as wife and mother. Then when the evening star appeared, telling her of the gloaming, she would hush her nestlings with a soothing lullaby, and, when they were sleeping, would swiftly fly to her imprisoned mate, bearing in her beak a sprig of moss, or a leaf from the well-remembered spot where they had been so happy in the spring-time of their life; and when she reached the prison, if her loved one was grieving, pining for the liberty he had lost, the home ties thus rudely broken, her sweet voice murmuring, 'I am here, love,' seemed to bring comfort to that poor failing heart; and as she tenderly pressed her cool, fresh beak to his, so parched and dry, he would reply, striving to be gay for her dear sake,—
'Ah, Jenny, you have brought on your wings some sunlight from our old home, my darling.'
One evening, when as usual she flew to the prison, she found him lying at the bottom of the cage, speechless and motionless. Frantically she tore at the cruel bars, beating them with her wings in an agony of despair.
'My own love, my own love!' she cried aloud in her anguish; 'speak to me once again!'
Her beloved voice seemed to possess the power to recall him back to life, for he heard her, though the shadows of death were stealing over him.