Aggie laughed, rather a careless ironical little laugh, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Starkey; but I think we will stay on where we are—at any rate for the present.”
“Of course it will be as you please. What do you think of the verandah?” she inquired, with a curious smile.
“I think, as I was saying to Susan, that it is worth half the rent of the house.”
“And in my opinion the house is worth double rent without it;” and with this enigmatic remark, she rose, and sailed away.
“Horrid old frump!” exclaimed Aggie, as we walked home in the starlight. “She is jealous and angry that she did not get Briarwood herself—I know her so well. She is always hinting, and repeating stories about the nicest people—always decrying your prettiest dress, or your best servant.”
We soon forgot all about Mrs. Starkey, and her dismal prophecy, being too gay, and too busy, to give her, or it, a thought. We had so many engagements—tennis-parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances, and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah—using the best spode cups and saucers, and the old silver cake-basket—and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in securing such a charming house and garden. One day the children discovered, to their great joy, that the old chowkidar belonging to the bungalow possessed an African grey parrot—a rare bird indeed in India; he had a battered Europe cage, doubtless a remnant of better days, and swung on his ring, looking up at us inquiringly, out of his impudent little black eyes.
The parrot had been the property of the former inmates of Briarwood, and as it was a long-lived creature, had survived its master and mistress, and was boarded out with the chowkidar, at one rupee per month.
The chowkidar willingly carried the cage into the verandah, where the bird seemed perfectly at home.
We got a little table for its cage, and the children were delighted with him, as he swung to and fro, with a bit of cake in his wrinkled claw.
Presently he startled us all by suddenly calling “Lucy,” in a voice that was as distinct as if it had come from a human throat. “Pretty Lucy—Lu—cy.”