at, creeping
maliciously up, made a rush at them from the rear, and pitched them
both into the chip heap.

This unspeakably base proceeding had the result, however, of
discovering to them the glasses, with which they soon after entered,
smiling.

"Bill often hides our glasses," said Aunt Electry.

"Does the goat often bunt you over?" I inquired, with dismay.

"Shut up!" said the parrot, at the sound of my voice. "Oh, I see ye!
I'll tell!"

My kind friends gave him a sharp glance, but considerately did not look
at me. They saw my emptied preserve plate, however, and concluding
that I had taken advantage of their absence the more greedily to gorge
myself on its contents, they generously piled it full again of what
they imagined to be the same coveted substance.

Seeing this, the parrot shrieked with fiendish joy.

"Indeed it is excellent----" I began.

"Oh, stow your gab!" sneered the parrot, in a suddenly gruff bass voice.

Aunt Electry rose and stamped her foot at him.

"He only knows what he 's been taught long ago--by a friend," said Aunt
Gozeman reassuringly; "he can't--tell anything new, right out!"

All the crime they imputed to me then was gluttony in the matter of
preserves! Very well; I preferred that.

"They were really so delightful," I began, with the natural reaction
from my qualms.

"Oh, wur-r-r!" interrupted that horrible grating voice, and then
laughed high and loud.

The sisters in affliction rose and bore the cage out into the shed But
I heard oaths and cackles of malicious intention fired at me through
the door.

"Sing 'We be a-sailin',' sister," said Aunt Electry, when we had
retired again to the fireside.

Miss Gozeman obediently began, in a soft, timid tremulo.

"We are _eout_ on the ocean _sail_ing," came in mocking, strident
accents from the wood-shed; "Oh, h--ll! give us a rest!" But dear Aunt
Gozeman sang right on, smiling pitifully:

"'To our home beyond the tide.'"

Ah, what tides! what tides had been in these two lives! And stranded
here for a little, how they cherished with a great heart of compassion
the dead trees that bore them no fruit, loving and pitying the wicked
parrot that mocked at them, the crow that stole from them, the goat
that upset them.

My own notions of charity seemed so little and mean in comparison.

"Ask me again," I pleaded; "I have been so seldom invited to tea. I
have enjoyed it."

Even the fate of the green melon and ginger