To the gentleman and his wife there was something cynical and afflicting in the bird's comment on mundane affairs, and they surreptitiously examined their visitor. Did she feel this?
She did—poor girl, she had been passing through some bitter experience. There was the haunting, injured look of wounded childhood on her face, and her curled lip showed that she, too, young as she was, had found that all was not good in the world, all was not beautiful.
The parrot was singing now:
"'Mid pleasures and palaces, though we may roam,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.
Home, home, sweet, s-we-e-e-t ho-o-o-me,"
but at this point she overbalanced herself. Her uplifted claw swung over and she fell backward among the rose-branches.
The bird's rueful expression as she fell, her ridiculous one as she gathered herself up, and with a surprised "Oh, dear!" climbed back to her perch, were so overcoming that the minister and his wife burst into hearty laughter.
'Tilda Jane did not join them. She looked interested, and a very faint crease of amusement came in a little fold about her lips, but at once faded away.
The minister got up and went to the fire, and taking out his watch earnestly consulted its face, then addressed his wife.