“Oh, isn’t he like the witches on the broom-sticks in our fairy-book, Olly?” cried Milly. “Don’t you think, Aunt Emma, he must have been changed into something? Perhaps he was a wicked witch once, or a magician, you know, and the fairies changed him into a parrot.”
“Well, Milly, I can’t say. He was a parrot when I had him first, twelve years ago. That’s all I know about it. But I believe he’s very old. Some people say he’s older than I am—think of that! So you see he’s had time to be a good many things. Well, Polly, good-night. You’re not a nice bird to-night at all. Take him away, Margaret.”
“Jane! Jane!” screamed Polly, as the maid lifted up the cage again. “Make haste, Jane! cat’s in the larder!”
“Oh, you bad Polly,” said Aunt Emma, “you’re always telling tales. Jane’s my cook, Milly, and Polly doesn’t like cats, so you see he tries to make Jane believe that our old cat steals the meat out of the larder. Good-bye, Polly, good-bye. You’re an ill-natured old bird, but I’m very fond of you all the same.”
“Do get us a parrot, mother!” said Olly, jumping about round his mother, when Polly was gone.
“How many more things will you want before you get home, Olly, do you think?” asked his mother, kissing him. “Perhaps you’ll want to take home a few mountains, and two or three little rivers, and a bog or two, and a few sheep—eh, young man?”
By this time dinner was ready, and there was the dinner-bell ringing. Up ran the children to Aunt Emma’s room to get their hands washed and their hair brushed, and presently there were two tidy little folks sitting on either side of Aunt Emma’s chair, and thinking to themselves that they had never felt quite so hungry before. But hungry as Milly was she didn’t forget to look out of the window before she began her dinner, and it was worth while looking out of the window in Aunt Emma’s dining-room.
Before the windows was a green lawn, like the lawn at Ravensnest, only this lawn went sloping away, away till there was just a little rim of white beach, and then beyond came the wide, dancing blue lake, that the children had seen from the top of the mountain. Here it was close to them, so close that Milly could hear the little waves plashing, through the open window.
“Milly,” whispered Aunt Emma when they were all waiting for pudding, “do you see that little house down there by the water’s edge? That’s where the boat lives—we call it a boathouse. Do you think you’ll be frightened of the water, little woman?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Milly, shaking her little wise head gravely. “I am frightened sometimes, very. Mother calls me a little goose because I run away from Jenny sometimes—that’s our cow at home, Aunt Emma, but then she’s got such long horns, and I can’t help feeling afraid.”