“Always before in the midst of my sharpest pain there had been a kind of comfort in thinking that Mr. Red remembered and longed for me just as I longed for and remembered him, but now I knew better. Those birds in the nest were not my birds. Spotted-Wing was their mother. I was forgotten; my place was filled; nobody wanted me there, and I felt as if my throat would burst with the lump which kept rising in it. “And while I waited, sitting high above the nest where I could look down into it, there was a whiz and whir in the air, and Spotted-Wing came home, looking a little older than when I saw her last, but quite as pretty and very happy. I was obliged to own that to myself, as I sat and watched her feeding her young ones, and every now and then turning up her head as if listening for some one. Just so I used to listen and just so I used to act when Mr. Red was coming home, as he did at last, and Spotted-Wing flew out a little way to meet him, and rubbed her bill against his, and kept at his side as he flew so near to me that the air set in motion by his wings stirred my feathers, and I could have touched him had I tried. “Oh, little did he dream who it was that sat and watched him until it grew dark, and all was still in the dear old nest which was once my home. When I could no longer see him and knew that he was asleep, I said good-by to him forever, and flew away to the palm-tree; where I staid till morning, and then I started down the river, caring nothing where I went or what became of me, and feeling an indescribable longing for the cage I had quitted and the little mistress I had left. “It was then that I came suddenly upon Robin, who is living near Green Cove Spring, and who was both astonished and delighted to see me. My face must have told him that I knew the worst, for he only said: “‘Poor little Reddie, it is rather hard, but it’s the way of the world. I s’pose you didn’t see your own children. One of them is dead, and the others are far up the river, near Enterprise, with families of their own, and as likely birds as you could wish to see. They think you dead, and so does Mr. Red, of course.’ “Both Robin and Motherdy were very kind to me, and I staid with them all that day and night, and they brought me my supper and tried to cheer me up, but nothing can ever make me happy again unless it be to find myself in the cage once more, with Florence and Johnnie to pet me. But even that pleasure is denied me, for when I left Robin I went back to Jacksonville and the hotel, hoping to find my mistress. But she had gone down by the sea, and it is a long way there, and I might get lost, and not find her after all, so I have given it up, and what I shall do with myself now I am sure I don’t know.”