"Oh, you do?" sarcastically rejoined Mrs. B. "That is of a piece with the rest of your selfishness, Mr. Britisher, I am sure. Die and leave me, the partner of your bosom, to struggle through the brooding season and afterward bring up our large family the best I may. Oh," breaking into tears, "I wish I had never seen you, I really do."
"Oh, yes, that has been the burden of your song for days, Mrs. B. I'm sure I have no reason to bless the hour I first laid eyes on you. Why, as the saying goes, Mrs. B., you threw yourself at my head at our very first meeting. And your precious mamma! How she did chirp about her darling Jenny's accomplishments and sweet amiability. Bah, what a ninny I was, to be sure! Oh, you needn't shriek and pluck the feathers from your head. Truth burns sometimes, I know, and--oh you are going to faint. Well faint!" and with an exclamation more forcible than polite Mr. B. flew away out of sight and sound of his weeping spouse.
Wearily and sadly did Mrs. B. gaze out of her humble home upon darkening nature that evening. Many hours had passed since the flight of Mr. B., and the promptings of hunger, if nothing else, caused her to gaze about, wistfully hoping for his return. The calls of other birds to their mates filled the air, and lent an additional mournfulness to her lonely situation.
"How glad I shall be to see him," she thought, her heart warming toward him in his absence. "I'll be cheerful and pretend to be contented after this, for I should be very miserable without him. I have been very foolish, and given him cause for all the harsh things he has said, perhaps. Oh, I _do_ wish he would come."
Night came down, dark and lonely. The voices and whirrings of her neighbors' wings had long since given place to stillness as one after another retired for the night. The wind swayed the branches of the tree in which she nested, their groanings and the sharp responses of the leaves filling the watcher's mind with gloomy forebodings.
"I am so frightened," she murmured, "there is surely going to be a storm. Oh, I wish I had listened to Mr. B. and not insisted upon building our home in the crotch of this tree. He said it was not wise, and that we would be much safer and snugger under the eaves or in a hole in the wall or tree. But, no, I said, if I was compelled to stay at home every day and sit upon the nest it should be situated where I could look out and see my neighbors as they flew about. That was the reason I was determined it should not be domed. I wanted to see and be seen. Oh, how foolish I have been! What shall I do? What shall I do? I am afraid to leave the nest even for a minute for fear the eggs will get cold. Mr. B. would never forgive me, then, I am sure. But to stay out here in the storm, all alone. Oh, I shall die, I know I shall."