The poor bird strove more and more with his voice and seemed ever more and more anxiously to address his notes of lament to Minda's ear, till at last she could not refrain from speaking to him.
"What aileth thee, sad bird?" she asked.
[Original]
As if he had but waited to be spoken to, the bird left his branch, and alighting upon the bank, smiled on Minda. Shaking his shining plumage, he answered:
"I am bound in this condition until a maiden shall accept me in marriage. I have wandered through these forests and sung to many and many of the Indian girls, but none ever heeded my voice till you. Will you be mine?" he added, and poured forth a flood of melody which sparkled and spread itself with its sweet murmurs over all the scene, fairly entrancing the young Minda, who sat silent, as if she feared to break the charm by speech.
The bird, approaching nearer, asked her, if she loved him, to get her mother's consent to their marriage. "I shall be free then," said the bird, "and you shall know me as I am."
Minda lingered and listened to the sweet voice of the bird, either in its own forest notes, or else filling each pause with gentle human discourse. For it questioned her as to her home, her family, and the little incidents of her daily life.
She returned to the lodge later than usual, but she was too timid to speak to her mother of that which the bird had charged her. She returned again and again to the fragrant haunt in the wood; and every day she listened to the songs of her bird admirer with more pleasure, and he every day besought her to speak to her mother of the marriage. This she could not, however, muster heart and courage to do.