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186 hook-billed bird was knocked down to her, and she walked off, carrying it with her in a little cage.

When she got home she hung up the cage, and as she was opening the wire door to give the brute a drink he snapped at her finger with his beak and bit it so that the blood came.

"Ah! how cross he is," she said.

Nevertheless she gave him some hemp-seed and corn to eat and then left him to smooth down his rumpled feathers, which he did, casting meanwhile sly, stealthy glances upon his new abode and his new mistress.

The day was just breaking next morning when the widow heard a voice, as distinct as could be, a loud, ringing, resounding voice, old Patin's voice, shouting:

"Will you get up, carrion!"

Her fright was so great that she drew the sheets up over her head, for every morning, in the old days, as soon as he had fairly got his eyes open, her deceased husband had yelled in her ears those five words that were so familiar to her.

Trembling in every limb, curled up like a ball and her back made ready to receive the shower of blows that she already felt in anticipation, she murmured, sinking her face still deeper into the pillow:

"Holy Father, there he is! Holy Father, there he is! He is back again. Holy Father!"

The minutes passed; no further sound disturbed the silence of the chamber. Then, quaking still with her great fear, she protruded her head from the bedclothes in the certainty that she should behold him there, watching her, prepared to beat her.

She saw nothing, nothing but a sunbeam shining through the window-pane, and she thought: