VERT— VERT ; OR PARROT GOSSIP 257 



the whole rambHng old house. He talked and laughed 

 heartily and uttered a variety of powerful whistling 

 notes as round and full and modulated as those of 

 any grey parrot. Now, all that would not have 

 attracted me much to the bird if I had not heard its 

 singular history, told to me by its mistress, the 

 landlady. She had had it in her possession fifty 

 years, and its story was as follows : — 



Her father-in-law, the landlord of the Lamb, had 

 a beloved son who went off to sea and was seen and 

 heard of no more for a space of fourteen years, when 

 one day he turned up in the possession of a sailor's 

 usual fortune, acquired in distant barbarous lands — 

 a parrot in a cage ! This he left with his parents, 

 charging them to take the greatest care of it, as it 

 was really a very wonderful bird, as they would 

 soon know if they could only understand its language, 

 and he then began to make ready to set off again, 

 promising his mother to write this time and not to 

 stay away more than five or at most ten years. 



Meanwhile, his father, who was anxious to keep 

 him, succeeded in bringing about a meeting between 

 him and a girl of his acquaintance, one who, he 

 believed, would make his son the best wife in the 

 world. The young wanderer saw and loved, and as 

 the feeling was returned he soon married and endowed 



