"I wonder he had not struck you down," said the lady, with a shudder. "He is said to be a man with a very violent temper."
'Tilda Jane sprang up, her face as white as a sheet. "I mos' forgot. I s'pose he's sittin' there this minute. He can't move without 'em, an' nobody'll go near him. Now, sir,"—and she turned in desperate haste to the little, dark, silent man,—"tell me quick what I ought to do."
"You are a child with a conscience," he said, gravely; "you have been turning the matter over in your own mind. What conclusion have you reached?"
"Go on," said the parrot, hoarsely, and between intervals of climbing by means of bill and claw to the top of a chair, "go on, and don't croak. Don't cr-r-r-r-oak!"
"'I'VE LED ANOTHER DOG ASTRAY, AN' NOW HE'S DEAD!'"
'Tilda Jane turned her solemn face toward the bird. "Walkin' to an' fro las' night, a verse o' Scripter kep' comin' to me, 'Children, obey your parents in the Lord—' Now, I ain't got any parents, but I had lady-boards. I oughtn't to 'a' run away. I ought to have give up the dog, an' trusted. I ought to 'a' begged them to get me a home. I ought to 'a' been a better girl. Then I might 'a' been 'dopted. Ever sence I've run away, there's been trouble—trouble, trouble, nothin' but trouble. I've led another dog astray, an' now he's dead!"
Mr. and Mrs. Tracy exchanged a pitying glance. The child was intensely in earnest. Her black eyes were bent absently on the parrot who had fallen prey to an immense curiosity with regard to Gippie, and having surveyed him from the back of the chair and the mantel, and finding him harmless, was now walking cautiously around him as he lay on the hearth-rug. Presently, emboldened by his silence, she took the end of his tail in her beak. He did not move, and she gently pinched it.