Dicky, dicky, cheep!" she chirped to my young representative, who sat in the centre of the table, perched on a photographic album and with his head cocked on one side.

He was staring very inquisitively at Mrs Clyde.

He evidently regarded her as an enemy; for, the feathers on his crest got ruffled.
"Indeed!" said her mother, in freezing accents--down to the temperature of the best Wenham Lake ice!--"I'm sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still, you know, Minnie," she continued, "that I do not like you receiving presents in this way." "But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!" I said, at last nerved up to the speaking-point.

I thought she would have told me then and there to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would say next.
"And he's such a little darling, mamma!" interposed Min impulsively.
Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.
"That may be quite true, my dear," she said; "but, as you know, and as Mr Lorton is probably also aware--although he is very young to have as yet mixed much in the world"-- _cut number two_!--"it is not quite correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they have been but barely introduced!"-- _cut three_! "Oh, mamma!" said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame.

She coloured up to the eyes--at the dread of having done something she ought not to have done.
Her exclamation armed me to the teeth.