"How queer!"
"It does seem so, but it's just as you look at it, Edith. Cats are a sight of company. I didn't care so much about them or about birds either when my husband was alive and my little children, but now—"
Again she paused, and this time she did not go on again. Some one out of doors laughed; it was Jimmy Dunlee, and the mocking-bird took up the merry sound and echoed it to perfection.
"Doesn't that seem human?" cried Mrs. McQuilken. And really it did. It was exactly the laugh of a human boy, though it came from the throat of a tiny bird.
"My little boys, Pitt and Roscoe, liked to hear him do that," said Mrs. McQuilken.
Edith observed that she did not say "my boyoes." "Pitt, the one that died in Japan, doted on the mocking-bird. The other boy, Roscoe, was all bound up in the canary."
"Does the canary sing?"
"Yes, he's a grand singer. Just you wait till he pipes up. You'll be surprised. But you remember what I was saying a little while ago about your mother? That zebra kitty—"
Before she could finish the sentence Edith heard the warning tinkle of the tea-bell, and sprang up suddenly, exclaiming: "Good-by, Mrs.—good-by, madam, I must go now. You've been very kind, thank you. Good-by."
And out of the door and away she skipped, leaving her hostess, who had not heard the bell, to wonder at her haste. "She went like a shot off a shovel," said the good lady, taking up her knitting-work. "She seemed to be such a well-mannered little girl, too! What got into her all at once? She acted as if she was 'possessed of the fox.'"