22 The Real Charlotte, 



have choked from his own misanthropic fury, helpless, 

 lonely spectator as he was of the secret gluttonies of Louisa, 

 and the maddening domestic felicity of the cats. 



But on this last day of turbulence and rout he had been 

 forgotten. The kitchen was sunny and stuffy, the blue- 

 bottles were buzzing their loudest in the cobwebby window, 

 one colony of evicted kittens was already beginning to make 

 the best of things in the turf heap, and the leaves of the 

 laurel outside were gleaming tropically against the brilliant 

 sky, with no one to appreciate them except the pigs. When 

 it came to half-past twelve o'clock the cockatoo could no 

 longer refrain, and fell to loud and prolonged screamings. 

 The only result at first was a brief stupefaction on the part 

 of the kittens, and an answering outcry from the fowl in the 

 yard ; then, after some minutes, the green baize cross-door 

 opened, and a voice bellowed down the passage : 



"Biddy! Bid Sal!" (fortissimo), "can't ye stop that bird's 

 infernal screeching ? " There was dead silence, and Miss 

 Mullen advanced into the kitchen and called again. 



" Biddy's claning herself, Miss Mullen," said a small voice 

 from the pantry door. 



" That's no reason you shouldn't answer ! " thundered 

 Charlotte; ^'come out here yourself and put the cockatoo 

 out in the yard." 



Louisa the orphan, a short, fat, white-faced girl of four- 

 teen, shuffled out of the pantry with her chin buried in her 

 chest, and her round terrified eyes turned upwards to Miss 

 Charlotte's face. 



" I'd be in dhread to ketch him," she faltered. 



Those ladies who considered Miss Mullen "eccentric, 

 but so kind-hearted, and so clever and agreeable," would 

 have been considerably surprised if they had heard the terms 

 in which she informed Louisa that she was wanting in 

 courage and intelligence ; but Louisa's face expressed no 

 surprise, only a vacancy that in some degree justified her 

 mistress's language. Still denouncing her retainers, Miss 

 Charlotte mounted nimbly upon a chair, and seizing the 

 now speechless cockatoo by the wings, carried him herself 

 out to the yard and fastened him to his accustomed laurel 

 bough. 



She did not go back to the kitchen, but, after a searching 



