ow, jutting out sufficiently to afford
glimpses of a vertical strip of blue sea to any one opening the sash,
and leaning forward far enough to look through a narrow lane of tall
intervening houses.

Elizabeth-Jane was standing in the middle of her upstairs parlour,
critically surveying some re-arrangement of articles with her head to
one side, when the housemaid came in with the announcement, "Oh, please
ma'am, we know now how that bird-cage came there."

In exploring her new domain during the first week of residence, gazing
with critical satisfaction on this cheerful room and that, penetrating
cautiously into dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to
the garden, now leaf-strewn by autumn winds, and thus, like a wise
field-marshal, estimating the capabilities of the site whereon she
was about to open her housekeeping campaign--Mrs. Donald Farfrae had
discovered in a screened corner a new bird-cage, shrouded in newspaper,
and at the bottom of the cage a little ball of feathers--the dead body
of a goldfinch. Nobody could tell her how the bird and cage had come
there, though that the poor little songster had been starved to death
was evident. The sadness of the incident had made an impression on her.
She had not been able to forget it for days, despite Farfrae's tender
banter; and now when the matter had been nearly forgotten it was again
revived.

"Oh, please ma'am, we know how the bird-cage came there. That farmer's
man who called on the evening of the wedding--he was seen wi' it in his
hand as he came up the street; and 'tis thoughted that he put it down
while he came in with his message, and then went away forgetting where
he had left it."

This was enough to set Elizabeth thinking, and in thinking she seized
hold of the idea, at one feminine bound, that the caged bird had been
brought by Henchard for her as a wedding gift and token of repentance.
He had not expressed to her any regrets or excuses for what he had done
in the past; but it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and
live on as one of his own worst accusers. She went out, looked at the
cage, buried the starved little singer, and from that hour her heart
softened towards the self-alienated man.

When her husband came in she told him her solution of the bird-cage
mystery; and begged Donald to help her in finding out, as soon as
possible, whither Henchard had banished himself, that she might make her
peace with him; try to do something