No doubt the close attention which the bird paid to everything that passed, and the presence of the old lady as well, did for a time interfere with their conversation. But, after awhile, the old lady was asleep, and the bird, having once or twice attempted to imitate the somnolent sounds which his mistress was making, seemed also to go to sleep himself. Then Reginald, beginning with Lady Ushant and the old Morton family generally, gradually got the conversation round to Bragton and the little bridge. He had been very stern when he had left her there, and he knew also that at that subsequent interview, when he had brought Lady Ushant’s note to her at her father’s house, he had not been cordially kind to her. Now they were thrown together for an hour or so in the closest companionship, and he wished to make her comfortable and happy. “I suppose you remember Bragton?” he said.
“Every path and almost every tree about the place.”
“So do I. I called there the other day. Family quarrels are so silly, you know.”
“Did you see Mr. Morton?”
“No;—and he hasn’t returned my visit yet. I don’t know whether he will—and I don’t much mind whether he does or not. That old woman is there, and she is very bitter against me. I don’t care about the people, but I am sorry that I cannot see the place.”
“I ought to have walked with you that day,” she said in a very low tone. The parrot opened his eyes and looked at them as though he were striving to catch his cue.
“Of course you ought.” But as he said this he smiled and there was no offence in his voice. “I dare say you didn’t guess how much I thought of it. And then I was a bear to you. I always am a bear when I am not pleased.”
“Peas, peas, peas,” said the parrot.
“I shall be a bear to that brute of a bird before long.”
“What a very queer bird he is.”
“He is a public nuisance—and so is the old lady who brought him here.” This was said quite in a whisper. “It is very odd, Miss Masters, but you are literally the only person in all Dillsborough in regard to whom I have any genuine feeling of old friendship.”
“You must remember a great many.”
“But I did not know any well enough. I was too young to have seen much of your father. But when I came back at that time you and I were always together.”
“Gedder, gedder, gedder,” said the parrot.
“If that bird goes on like that I’ll speak to the guard,” said Mr. Morton with affected anger.
“Polly mustn’t talk,” said the old lady waking up.
“Tok, tok, tok, tok,” screamed the parrot. Then the old lady threw a shawl over him and again went to sleep.
“If I behaved badly I beg your pardon,” said Mary.
“That’s just what I wanted to say to you, Miss Masters—only a man never can do those things as well as a lady. I did behave badly, and I do beg your pardon. Of course I ought to have asked Mr. Twentyman to come with us. I know that he is a very good fellow.”
“Indeed he is,” said Mary Masters, with all the emphasis in her power. “Deedy is, deedy is, deedy is, deedy is,” repeated the parrot in a very angry voice about a dozen times under his shawl, and while the old lady was remonstrating with her too talkative companion their tickets were taken and they ran into the Hinxton Station. “If the old lady is going on to Cheltenham we’ll travel third class before we’ll sit in the same carriage again with that bird,” said Morton laughing as he took Mary into the refreshment-room. But the old lady did not get into the same compartment as they started, and the last that was heard of the parrot at Hinxton was a quarrel between him and the guard as to certain railway privileges.
When they had got back into the railway carriage Morton was very anxious to ask whether she was in truth engaged to marry the young man as to whose good fellowship she and the parrot had spoken up so emphatically, but he hardly knew how to put the question. And were she to declare that she was engaged to him, what should he say then? Would he not be bound to congratulate her? And yet it would be impossible that any word of such congratulation should pass his lips. “You will stay a month at Cheltenham?” he said.
“Your aunt was kind enough to ask me for so long.”
“I shall go back on Saturday. If I were to stay longer I should feel myself to be in her way. And I have come to live a sort of hermit’s life. I hardly know how to sit down and eat my dinner in company, and have no idea of seeing a human being before two o’clock.”
“What do you do with yourself?”
“I rush in and out of the garden and spend my time between my books and my flowers and my tobacco pipes.”
“Do you mean to live always like that?” she asked—in perfect innocency.
“I think so. Sometimes I doubt whether it’s wise.”
“I don’t think it wise at all,” said Mary.
“Why not?”
“People should live together, I think.”
“You mean that I ought to have a wife?”
“No;—I didn’t mean that. Of course that must be just as you might come to like anyone well enough. But a person need not shut himself up and be a hermit because he is not married. Lord Rufford is not married and he goes everywhere.”
“He has money and property and is a man of pleasure.”
“And your cousin, Mr. John Morton.”
“He is essentially a man of business, which I never could have been. And they say he is going to be married to that Miss Trefoil who has been staying there. Unfortunately I have never had anything that I need do in all my
