The little, dark, quiet man barely turned as she entered, but his one quick glance told him more than hours of conversation from 'Tilda Jane would have revealed. He did not get up, he did not shake hands with her, he merely nodded and uttered a brief "Good-morning."
"Won't you sit here?" said Mrs. Tracy, bustling to the fireplace, and disturbing the cat and the dog in order to draw up a chair.
"I think our young caller will have some breakfast with me," said the minister, without raising his eyes, and stretching out his hand he pushed a chair beyond the rose-bush, and by a gesture invited 'Tilda Jane to sit in it.
She seated herself, crowded Gippie on her lap under the table, and mechanically put to her mouth the cup of steaming milk that seemed to glide to her hand. She was nearly fainting. A few minutes more, and she would have fallen to the floor. The minister did not speak to her. He went calmly on with his breakfast, and a warning finger uplifted kept his wife from making remarks. He talked a good deal to the parrot, and occasionally to himself, and not until 'Tilda Jane had finished the milk and eaten some bread and butter did any one address her.
Then the minister spoke to the bird. "Say good morning to the little girl, Lulu."
"Good morning," remarked the parrot, in a voice of grating amiability.
"Say 'It's a pretty world,' Lulu," continued her owner.
"It's a pretty world, darlin'," responded the parrot, bursting into hoarse, unmusical laughter at her own addition. "Oh, it's a pretty world—a pretty world!"