“Such carrion creatures should not be allowed about such a pretty cage.”
“It is, indeed, a pretty cage. Some neater-handed Phyllis than we have seen has had the arranging of the household gear within.”
“Yes; the mistress of this rolling mansion has not lost her domestic ambition. This is quite the model wagon of the train. Refinement does not disdain Sizzum’s pilgrims; as ecce signum here!”
“The pretty cage has its bird,—pretty too, perhaps. See! there is some one behind that shawl screen at the back of the wagon.”
“The bird has divined Murker and Larrap, and is hiding, probably.”
“Come; we have stared long enough; let us walk on.”
CHAPTER X.
“ELLEN! ELLEN!”
We were turning away from the pretty cage, in order not to frighten the bird, pretty or not, when an oldish man, tending his fire at the farther side of the wagon, gave us “Good evening!”
There is a small but ancient fraternity in the world, known as the Order of Gentlemen. It is a grand old order. A poet has said that Christ founded it; that he was “the first true gentleman that ever lived.”