"Very well, I hope you will find her recovered, we will wait your
return."

Anne soon returned,--"She is gone! I do not see her anywhere!"

"Gone! In perhaps we shall find her at play in the garden."

In this expectation they all went out, and as they drew near the
spot where the nest was, they saw Frances looking very eagerly into
the nest, and seeming to be in some agitation, then she threw
something out of her hand, and ran away as if wanting not to be seen.

"She is about some mischief," William said, and ran forward to the
nest. But what was his grief to see one of the little birds dead on
the ground, two others in the nest with pieces of bread sticking in
their mouths, gasping, unable to swallow or reject it, and the fourth
with its crop gorged, and slowly moving its little unfledged head
from side to side, struggling in death.

Full of sympathy with the little sufferer, and indignant with
Frances, he exclaimed, "Provoking girl! she has stuffed the little
creatures as she would like to stuff herself; and I believe she has
killed them all."

The lively interest the other children had in the nest, impelled
them to hasten to the spot, and their lamentations, and even tears,
soon flowed.

"William, William, cannot you do anything for them? do try."