ust have been a
Purple Sandpiper, which, the paper said, had "a low shrill note,
constantly repeated." And then he took down a book of Siberian Travels
from the bookcase and showed her a page which told how a man was
followed by a bird all day long through a forest. And that's what Aunt
Marian says vexes her more than anything almost; to think that he should
be so artful and ready with those books, twisting them to his own wicked
ends. But, at the time, when she was out walking, she simply couldn't
make out what he meant by talking about birds in that random, silly sort
of way, so unlike him, and they went on, that horrible whistling
following them, she looking straight ahead and walking fast, really
feeling more huffy and put out than frightened. And when they got to the
next stile, she got over and turned round, and "lo and behold," as she
says, there was no Uncle Robert to be seen! She felt herself go quite
white with alarm, thinking of that whistle, and making sure he'd been
spirited away or snatched in some way or another, and she had just
screamed out "Robert" like a mad woman, when he came quite slowly round
the corner, as cool as a cucumber, holding something in his hand. He
said there were some flowers he could never pass, and when aunt saw that
he had got a dandelion torn up by the roots, she felt as if her head
were going round.'

Mary's story was suddenly interrupted. For ten minutes Darnell had been
writhing in his chair, suffering tortures in his anxiety to avoid
wounding his wife's feelings, but the episode of the dandelion was too
much for him, and he burst into a long, wild shriek of laughter,
aggravated by suppression into the semblance of a Red Indian's
war-whoop. Alice, who was washing-up in the scullery, dropped some three
shillings' worth of china, and the neighbours ran out into their gardens
wondering if it were murder. Mary gazed reproachfully at her husband.

'How can you be so unfeeling, Edward?' she said, at length, when
Darnell had passed into the feebleness of exhaustion. 'If you had seen
the tears rolling down poor Aunt Marian's cheeks as she told me, I don't
think you would have laughed. I didn't think you were so hard-hearted.'

'My dear Mary,' said Darnell, faintly, through sobs and catching of the
breath, 'I am awfully sorry. I know it's very sad, really, and I'm not
unfeeling; but it is such an odd tale, now, isn't it? The Sandpiper, you
know, and then the dandelion!'

His face tw