Mistress Kitty was put back a little by two such signal failures. There was another chance, however, to make her point, which she presently availed herself of,--feeling pretty sure this time that she should effect a lodgement. Mrs. Hopkins's parrot had been observing Kitty, first with one eye and then with the other, evidently preparing to make a remark, but awkward with a stranger. "That's a beautiful par't y've got there," Kitty said, buoyant with the certainty that she was on safe ground this time; "and tahks like a book, I 'll be bound. Poll! Poll! Poor Poll!" She put forth her hand to caress the intelligent and affable bird, which, instead of responding as expected, "squawked," as our phonetic language has it, and, opening a beak imitated from a tooth-drawing instrument of the good old days, made a shrewd nip at Kitty's forefinger. She drew it back with a jerk. "An' is that the way your par't tahks, Mrs. Hopkins?" "Talks, bless you, Kitty! why, that parrot has n't said a word this ten year. He used to say Poor Poll! when we first had him, but he found it was easier to squawk, and that 's all he ever does now-a-days,--except bite once in a while." "Well, an' to be sure," Kitty answered, radiant as she rose from her defeats, "if you 'll kape a cat that does n't know a mouse when she sees it, an' a dog that only barks for his livin', and a par't that only squawks an' bites an' niver spakes a word, ye must be the best-hearted woman that 's alive, an' bliss ye, if ye was only a good Catholic, the Holy Father 'd make a saint of ye in less than no time." So Mistress Kitty Fagan got in her bit of Celtic flattery, in spite of her three successive discomfitures. "You may come up now, Kitty," said Mr. Gridley, over the stairs. He had just finished and sealed a letter. "Well, Kitty, how are things going on up at The Poplars? And how does our young lady seem to be of late?" "Whisht! whisht! your honor." Mr. Bradshaw's lessons had not been thrown away on his attentive listener. She opened every door in the room, "by your lave," as she said. She looked all over the walls to see if there was any old stove-pipe hole or other avenue to eye or ear. Then she went, in her excess of caution, to the window. She saw nothing noteworthy except Mr. Gifted Hopkins and the charge he convoyed, large and small, in the distance. The whole living fleet was stationary for the moment, he leaning on the fence with his cheek on his hand, in one of the attitudes of the late Lord Byron; she, very near him, listening, apparently, in the pose of _Mignon aspirant au ciel_, as rendered by Carlo Dolce Scheffer. Kitty came back, apparently satisfied, and stood close to Mr. Gridley, who told her to sit down, which she did, first making a catch at her apron to dust the chair with, and then remembering that she had left that part of her costume at home.--Automatic movements, curious.