"The very thing!" cried Bill. "Let's go to the bird man's, and see what we can get."
Off they started, Bab trotting along bravely.
An hour later, as night was falling, up the dark stair of Nellie's home came three pairs of eager feet. Mother came to the door to meet the children.
"How late you are, dears!" she said. "I was beginning to be anxious about you."
"Mother! mother!—look! look!" was all the answer she received; and a poor rumpled pigeon was pressed so close to her face that she could hardly see it.
And then the tired mother heard the story of the wonderful afternoon—how kind the little gentleman had been, how grim and cross the bird man, at first ordering them away without listening to them, then refusing to sell them anything for a shilling, and finally giving them this darling pigeon that he thought was going to die, and giving them back their shilling too. There it was, smooth and shining, and Nellie held it out for mother to see.
Before one of the little ones would taste a bite of food, the pigeon had to be fed and warmed. A basket was filled with soft rags, and set near the fire, and in it the sick bird was placed. Then it was fed with delightful bread and milk, each child sparing a part of its own supper. Its bright eyes watched the children go to bed, and before they went there was a prayer softly breathed, in which the little gentleman was not forgotten, nor yet the rough bird man.
Long before it wanted to be, the next morning, the pigeon was awakened by tender caresses, and fed before they so much as looked at their own breakfast. Certainly it looked better. The shilling was put carefully away to buy its food. When Nellie and Bill, after a last loving glance, had gone to school, Bab sat down by it on the hearth.
"Oh, pigeon, pigeon," she whispered, "do live! I love you so! I do love you so! Oh, pigeon, live!"