Morning broke with all nature, after the rain, smiling and refreshed. Sleep had not visited the eyelids of the forsaken wife and with heavy eyes and throbbing brain, she viewed the rising dawn.
"Alas," she sighed, as the whirr of wings and happy chirps of her neighbors struck upon her ears, "how can people be joyous when aching hearts and lives broken with misery lie at their very thresholds? The songs and gleeful voices of my neighbors fill me with anger and despair. I hate the world and everybody in it. I am cold and wet and hungry. I even hate the sun that has risen to usher in a new day.
"I must make an effort," she murmured as the morning advanced and Mr. B. did not return, "and get home to mother. I am so weak I can scarcely stand, much less fly. I am burning with fever, and oh, how my head throbs! Such trouble and sorrow for one so young! I feel as though I shall never smile again."
She steadied herself upon the edge of the nest and, turning, gazed wistfully and sadly upon the five tiny eggs, which she now sorrowed to abandon.
"I may return," she sighed, "in time to lend them warmth, or may find my dear mate performing that office in my absence. I will pray that it may be so as I fly. Praises would be mockery from my throat to-day, mockery!"
"Why, Jenny!" shrieked her mother as Mrs. B. sank down exhausted upon the threshold of her old home. "Whatever _is_ the matter with you, and what has brought you here this time of day?"
"I am hungry and sick, mother, and I feel as though, as though--I am going to die!"
"And where is Mr. Britisher? You've no business to be hungry with a husband to care for you," tartly replied her mother, whilst bustling about to find a grub or two to supply her daughter's wants.
"I have no husband, I fear, mother. He is--"
"Dead!" shrieked the old lady. "Don't tell me Mr. Britisher is dead!"
"Dead, or worse," sadly replied her daughter.
"Worse? Heaven defend us! You don't mean he has deserted you?"
"He left me yesterday afternoon in anger, and has not returned."
"Highty, tighty, that's it, is it? Well, you have brought it all upon yourself and will have to suffer for it. I am sure your father talked enough about idleness and vanity for you to have heeded, and time and time again I have told you that every husband in the sparrow family is a bully and a tyrant, and every wife, if she expects to live happily, must let her mate have his own way."