Page:The Father Confessor, Stories of Danger and Death.djvu/145

Rh She reached the bush where the nest was. She let go his hand, and, springing forward, drew the branches asunder; but her face fell as she looked. The nest was broken, and the young birds destroyed or stolen.

"Oh!" she cried, "they are gone!"

He stooped beside her.

"Alas! the pretty home."

"And my little birds, where are they, my father?"

"God knows," he answered bitterly. "The birds are gone and the nest broken; the destroyer has been here too. It is always so."

"Does he come to all the nests?" she said. And he answered, following his own bitter thoughts,—

"Always."

The child was silent. They returned home. She clung to her father's hand, too weary to speak. She was afraid to say how tired she was, for fear he should offer to carry her. He strode on, with long, quick steps that she found it difficult to keep up to. Her lips were quivering, and the tears would keep rolling down her cheeks. She turned away her head from him so that he could not know, for fear of