“Poor dicky—poor Sunbeam,” said Miss Roy—“what can be wrong with you?”
The cage was hung high to be out of the way of the cats. Miss Roy lifted it down off its hook, and put it on a little table which stood near. The next moment she uttered a shocked exclamation.
No wonder the bird was dull and unable to sing. His water-trough was empty, and he had scarcely any seed left in his seed-drawer.
“Impossible!” said Miss Roy. “Nancy to forget the bird she loves so much! And yet I must believe my own sight.”
She felt very angry. Cruelty to dumb animals was the one sin she could not overlook. Taking the trough, she proceeded to fill it with water; and she was just replenishing the seeds when the door opened, and Augusta, singing a gay song, and carrying a bunch of groundsel in her hand, entered the room.
“Oh, Miss Roy, you here!” she cried. “I was bringing a piece of groundsel for Sunbeam. Why, what is the matter? Is the bird ill?”
“It looks like it,” said Miss Roy.
She did not want Augusta to share her discovery. But that young lady was a great deal too astute to be easily hoodwinked.
“Why, what is it?” she said. “What can be the matter?”
Then she went up to the cage, and made precisely the same discovery Miss Roy had made.