In the mid-1900s, an upper class mother stands at her window, observing her two daughters staring inquisitively at something. She thinks about how silly it is that her husband dotes on them, and that it is good that she doesn’t. She likes her children, but doesn’t think they are anything spectacular. She goes outside to see what they are doing, and finds that they are looking at two doves they found on the lawn. One of the servants comes with a cage he built for the birds. The mother is jealous because she assumes the father has sent the doves, and the daughters have never loved any of the expensive dolls she buys them as much as the birds. There is a note attached to one of the doves’ wings, and the girls excitedly beg the mother to read it to them. They think it’s a note from their father. The mother reads it, tells the girls it’s for their father, and hurries away. The note is actually from another lover of hers, and she hurriedly thinks about how she can explain the doves to her husband. She decides to tell him that she sent the doves, but gave him the credit. Her thoughts (and her apparent affair) make it clear that her marriage is somewhat troubled. A big storm arrives, and the mother is scared but does not want the daughters to know. When the storm lets up the girls rush outside to see the doves. One of the birds has a wing caught in the cage, and when the girls open the cage to free it, the other dove flies out into a tree. The mother watches as one of the daughters raises their arms in supplication to the dove, and lightning strikes the daughter, killing her. The dove flies away.