"Well, well, it really doesn't matter to me. Child, don't stare."
I looked away at once. There was a parrot in a cage, and the parrot said, in his shrill voice at that moment: "Stop knocking at the door."
I burst into a peal of laughter and ran towards him. I was about to approach his cage with my finger, when Aunt Penelope said:
"He bites."
I did not want him to bite my finger, for his beak was so sharp. So I said:
"Please, Aunt Penelope, are you aunt also to Anastasia?"
"I have never heard of her," said Aunt Penelope. "Little girls should be seen and not heard."
At that moment the parrot again shouted out, "Stop knocking at the door," and I was so amused by him that I did not mind Aunt Penelope. After all, nothing much mattered, for I would be going to London immediately with Daddy.
I stood and stared at the parrot, hoping much that he would speak again. The parrot cocked his head to one side and looked at me, but he did not utter a word.
"Speak, oh! do speak," I said in a whisper; the parrot turned his back on me.