"Stop!" said Vivian, laying my hand on his own, and with his old bitter
smile on his lip,--"stop! Do you think it mercy to save the bird? What
from; and what for? From a natural enemy,--from a short pang and a
quick death? Fie! is not that better than slow starvation,--or, if you
take more heed of it, than the prison-bars of a cage? You cannot
restore the nest, you cannot recall the parent. Be wiser in your
mercy,--leave the bird to its gentlest fate."

I looked hard on Vivian: the lip had lost the bitter smile. He rose and
turned away. I sought to take up the poor bird; but it did not know its
friends, and ran from me, chirping piteously,--ran towards the very jaws
of the grim enemy. I was only just in time to scare away the beast,
which sprang up a tree and glared down through the hanging boughs. Then
I followed the bird, and as I followed, I heard, not knowing at
first whence the sound came, a short, quick, tremulous note. Was it
near, was it far? From the earth, in the sky? Poor parent bird, like
parent-love, it seemed now far and now near; now on earth, now in sky!

And at last, quick and sudden, as if born of the space, lo, the little
wings hovered over me!

The young bird halted, and I also.

"Come," said I, "ye have found each other at last,--settle it between
you!"

I went back to the outcast.