“Phoebe! what preposterous folly!” said Mrs Latrobe. “Well, child, you are a fool—that’s as plain as a pikestaff; but—”
“You’re a fool!” came in a screech from the parrot’s cage, followed by a burst of laughter.
“But ’tis no use crying over spilt milk. If we have lost Mr Welles, we have lost him; and we must try for some one else. Oh dear, how hot it is! Phoebe, I wonder when you will have any sense. I do beseech you, my dear, never to play the same game with anyone else.”
“I hope, Mother,” said Phoebe, gravely, “that I shall never have occasion.”
“What a lot of geese!” said the parrot.
Chapter Twelve.
Ends in the Maidens’ Lodge.
“Mother, Mother, up in Heaven,
Stand up on the jasper sea,
And be witness I have given
All the gifts required of me.”
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.