ith me; I will take you to
where he is imprisoned.'

The next morning, before the sun had risen, away flew the Swallow, and
with him the little Wren. She heeded not that the valleys were still
shrouded in mist, or that the cold grey dawn yet lingered in the skies;
was not her sunshine coming? should she not soon see him who was her
brightness? The day wore on, and onward still by the Swallow's side,
she, with untiring pinions, winged her way; she suffered not from
noontide heat, she felt not even the pangs of hunger or thirst, for her
heart was filled with hope. But towards evening her pitying guide led
her over a hot, murky town; the very sky above it was hidden by the
thick atmosphere of smoke which seemed completely to envelope it; the
two birds could scarcely breathe, the air was so dense with poisonous
gases.

'It cannot be here?' she gasped, as suddenly the Swallow paused in his
rapid flight.

'See, see!' was his exclamation.

Then, raising her heavy eyes, she saw, suspended from a high window, a
small wire cage, and in it--her long-lost mate!

He was resting on a low perch, with his poor aching head beneath his
wing; his pretty brown feathers were no longer smoothly plumed, but hung
ragged and tattered around his wasted form, so different to the bright,
bonnie bird of the long-ago! But she heeded not the change; to her he
was as beautiful, ay, and more dear than ever, so, flying up, she clung
with eager feet to the cruel bars which kept her from him, and, pressing
her beak as close as possible to the cage, she murmured,--

'I am here, love!'

At the sound of that sweet voice, so well remembered by the captive, he
raised his drooped head, and, gazing at her with all the old loving
tenderness, whispered feebly,--

'Is it you, Jenny? Ah, I knew you would come!'

And every evening found her there. Patiently would she stay near the
prisoner throughout the dark watches of the night, cheering her loved
one because she was near; but when the grey dawn came stealing over the
skies, away she would fly back to the nest in the oak, and during the
day would carefully tend her little ones, fulfilling thus her double
duty as wife and mother. Then when the evening star appeared, telling
her of the gloaming, she would hush her nestlings with a soothing
lullaby, and, when they were sleeping, would swiftly fly to her
imprisoned mate, bearing in her beak a sprig of moss, or a leaf from the
well-remembered spot where they