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Martindale returned then, sat down on his bench, and, smoothing his leather apron, resumed his work with composure. "I fink," said The Seraph, "I hear Mrs. Handsomebody calling. I better be off." "Bide a little while," said Martindale, "and I'll tell you a first rate story about birds too. Then you'll forget your fright, little master, eh?"
"I s'pose it's some more of the woot," giggled The Seraph. I put my hand in my pocket and produced the empty bottle. Mrs. Handsomebody took it between her thumb and forefinger. She gave me a sharp rap on the head with it. "Now," she gobbled, "go to your room and remain there till the exercises are over, then return to me for punishment. And change your trousers." My trousers had been changed.
Handsomebody sank back in her chair with a groan. "Alexander," she said it solemnly, "I tremble for your future. You are not the boy your father was. I tremble for you." "John," she continued, turning to me, "you will come into the parlour with me. I wish to have a talk with you. David and Alexander, you may amuse yourselves with one of my bound volumes of 'The Quiver."
She held the door open for us while we filed sheepishly under her arm. Then the door closed behind us with a decisive bang, and poor Mary Ellen was left in the torture-chamber with Mrs. Handsomebody and the stuffed birds. Angel and I scurried up the stairway. We could hear The Seraph panting as he laboured after us.
Coppertoes was busy with the owl, when a piercing scream came from behind me. I turned and found Mrs. Handsomebody gazing with horrified fascination at the orgy under glass. She took three steps forward, her eyes starting with horror. "Come to life " she gasped, in a strangled voice "after all these years and gone stark mad."
I set off as fast as my legs could carry me; and the nearer home I drew, the greater became my fear of Mrs. Handsomebody. What would she say? Dinner would be over long ago I knew. My steps began to lag as I reached the Cathedral corner. The great grey pile usually so friendly now rose before me gloomily. Inside, the organ boomed like an accusing voice. My heart sank. Mrs.
And now another cloud loomed on our horizon. Mrs. Handsomebody was getting better. She had sat up on a chair by the bedside; she had, with Mary Ellen's help, walked across the room; she had, all alone, walked down the hallway; she had come to the head of the stairs.
What do you say? Thanks would not be amiss." Angel and I mumbled thanks, though we were well nigh speechless with astonishment and joy. The Seraph bolted his cherished bit of egg whole and said in his polite little voice: "He's a vewy nice man to take us fishin'. I wonder what made him do it." "I have never pretended," returned Mrs. Handsomebody, stiffly, "to account for the vagaries of the male.
Mystery brooded over the house of Handsomebody all that afternoon and evening. We were allowed to have no finger in this portentous pie. Mr. Watlin, with some small assistance from Mary Ellen, engineered the thing himself. We were sent to bed at the usual hour, and played at burglars on, and under, the bed, to while away the intervening hours.
"She's in the parlour," I whispered, "and the Bishop's with her. Shall you go in?" Granfa nodded solemnly. We stood in the doorway of the sacred apartment. Even there, the spirit of the May morning seemed to have penetrated, for in the glass case a stuffed oriole had cocked his eye with a longing look at a withered nest that hung before him. Mrs. Handsomebody had just finished her recital.
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