Village books

Gladstone," was the somewhat freezing answer;
"this is the only point on which we disagree, for I adore him.
Don't ask more about this, it is a great grief to me. I tell them
everything," she continued, "and hide no secret from them."
"But can any parrot be trusted to keep a secret?"
"Mine can."
"And on Sundays do you give them the same course of reading as on a
week-day, or do you make a difference?"
"On Sundays I always read them a genealogical chapter from the Old
or New Testament, for I can thus introduce their names without
profanity. I always keep tea by me in case they should ask for it
in the night, and I have an Etna to warm it for them; they take milk
and sugar. The old white-headed clergyman came to see them last
night; it was very painful, for Jocko reminded him so strongly of
his late . . . "
I thought she was going to say "wife," but it proved to have been
only of a parrot that he had once known and loved.
One evening she was in difficulties about the quarantine, which was
enforced that year on the Italian frontier.


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