Her hands rested on the work in her lap, her head bent forward, her eyes were riveted dreamily on the ground, and her soul, wandering perhaps to other lands, seemed to abandon itself on the current of a happy reverie.

After a while she placed the linen she had been sewing on a chair and got up slowly.
Leaning languidly on the window-frame, she gathered a few violets, played with them a while, and then looked abroad at the sky over the roof-tops, as if longing to breathe once more the fresh air and enjoy the spring.

Soon her eyes fixed themselves compassionately on the bird that hopped about its cage and ever and anon struck its bill against the wires as if striving to get out.
"Why dost thou want to leave us, dear little bird ?" said she, softly.
"Why dost thou wish to be gone, dear comforter of our sadness?
Sing gayly to-day; father is well again, and life is once more a pleasure.
What is it makes thee flutter about so wildly and pant in thy cage?
Ah! is it not hard, dear little one, to be captive when we know there are joy and freedom in the open air ?--when we are born in the fields and woods ?--when we know that _there_ alone are independence and liberty.
Like thee, poor bird, I am a child of nature; I too have been torn from my birthplace; I too bemoan the solitudes where my childhood was passed! But has a friend or lover been snatched from thee--as from me--forever?
Dost thou grieve for something more than space and freedom?
Yet why do I ask?
Thy love-season has come round again, has it not?
and love is the greatest blessing of thy little life! I understand thee, poor bird! I will no longer be thy fate! Fly away, and God help you! Begone, and enjoy the two greatest blessings of life! Ah, how thou singest as thy wings bear thee away,--away to the sky and woods! Farewell! farewell!" As she uttered these last words Lenora opened the cage-door and released the bird, which darted away like an arrow.

After this she resumed her work and sewed on with the same zeal as before, till aroused by the sound of footsteps on the staircase.
"It is father! God grant he may have been lucky to-day!" Monsieur De Vlierbeck entered the room with a roll of paper in his hand, and, throwing himself languidly into a chair, seemed altogether worn out with fatigue.

He had become very thin; his eyes were sunk in their sockets, his cheeks were pale, and his whole expression was changed and broken.