Just as Belinda was beginning to sing, Marriott’s macaw began to scream, so that Lady Delacour could not hear any thing else. “Oh, that odious macaw!” cried her ladyship, “I can endure it no longer” (and she rang her bell violently): “it kept me from sleeping all last night--Marriott must give up this bird. Marriott, I cannot endure that macaw--you must part with it for my sake, Marriott. It cost you four guineas: I am sure I would give five with the greatest pleasure to get rid of it, for it is the torment of my life.” “Dear, my lady! I can assure you it is only because they will not shut the doors after them below, as I desire. I am certain Mr. Champfort never shut a door after him in his life, nor never will if he was to live to the days of Methuselah.” “That is very little satisfaction to me, Marriott,” said Lady Delacour. “And indeed, my lady, it is very little satisfaction to me, to hear my macaw abused as it is every day of my life, for Mr. Champfort’s fault.” “But it cannot be Champfort’s fault that I have ears.” “But if the doors were shut, my lady, you wouldn’t or couldn’t hear--as I’ll prove immediately,” said Marriott, and she ran directly and shut, according to her own account, “eleven doors which were stark staring wide open.”--“Now, my lady, you can’t hear a single syllable of the macaw.” “No, but one of the eleven doors will open presently,” said Lady Delacour: “you will observe it is always more than ten to one against me.” A door opened, and the macaw was heard to scream. “The macaw must go, Marriott, that is certain,” said her ladyship, firmly. “Then _I_ must go, my lady,” said Marriott, angrily, “that is certain; for to part with my macaw is a thing I cannot do to please _any_ body.” Her eyes turned with indignation upon Belinda, from association merely; because the last time that she had been angry about her macaw, she had also been angry with Miss Portman, whom she imagined to be the secret enemy of her favourite. “To stay another week in the house after my macaw’s discarded in disgrace is a thing nothing shall prevail upon me to do.” She flung out of the room in a fury. “Good Heavens! am I reduced to this?” said Lady Delacour: “she thinks that she has me in her power. No; I can die without her: I have but a short time to live--I will not live a slave. Let the woman betray me, if she will. Follow her this moment, my dear generous friend; tell her never to come into this room again: take this pocket-book, pay her whatever is due to her in the first place, and give her fifty guineas--observe!--not as a bribe, but as a reward.” It was a delicate and difficult commission. Belinda found Marriott at first incapable of listening to reason. “I am sure there is nobody in the world that would treat me and my macaw in this manner, except my lady,” cried she; “and somebody must have set her against me, for it is not natural to her: but since she can’t bear me about her any longer, ‘tis time I should be gone.”