“If I had stopped a minute to consider, I might have hesitated about leaving the cage which had been my home so long, and to which I was really very much attached, but just as I hopped out upon the floor, some children came running round the corner and frightened me so, that I instantly flew to the top of a tree near by. It was my first experiment in flying for almost two years, and it seemed so natural, so delightful, to beat the air with my wings once more, and freedom seemed so sweet that I could not go back, but sat for a moment looking at the empty cage and my little mistress standing by it with a sorry look on her face, as if she had not quite expected me to leave her so readily. Then I thought of the nest in the jasmine, and of Mr. Red, and the happy life I had lived with him among the orange-trees and magnolias, and I said to myself, ‘I must go there,’ and while my mistress was looking up at me with those bright black eyes of hers, I flew away as fast as my wings could take me, in the direction of my old home. But not being accustomed to flying, I soon grew tired, and stopped many times to rest and look down from some tall tree upon the river, which had never seemed so beautiful to me as it did that day. CHAPTER VI. CONCLUSION. “It was late in the afternoon when I reached the clump of jasmine where I had left my little ones, and though I knew that by this time they were grown-up birds, and possibly had families of their own, I could not help feeling as if I should find them just as I had left them, hungry, noisy, and so glad to see me. It was very still in the thicket, and not a single bird of any kind was to be seen. But this did not surprise me much, for it was the time of day when the old birds would naturally be off after the little ones’ supper. They would soon be coming back, and I thought how delighted Mr. Red would be, and how startled, too, when he found me waiting for him just as I used to do.” “I reckon he was startled, too,” interrupted the Paroquet. “But pray hurry on. I _was_ getting a little tired, but I’m all attention now. You waited, you say, for Mr. Red to come, and didn’t you go near the old nest till he came?” “Yes,” returned Mrs. Red, “I went to the nest the first thing, and found it just as I had seen it in my dreams so many times, and right at the bottom, huddled together, were three little ones about the size of mine when I left them. And for an instant I forgot myself and thought they _were_ mine, and flew down so close to them that they awoke and began to scramble toward the top of the nest and open their mouths as if they were hungry. On the right wing of two of them little brown spots were beginning to show, and then I _knew_, and grew sick and faint, and more sorry than I had been since the day I was stolen away, and with such a different kind of sorrow, too.