repeated limply, and
her tone was numb and indescribable.

"How much did it--" she asked after a minute.

"I bid it in for one dollar 'n' ninety-seven cents,--I was awful
scared f'r fear it would go over your two dollars, an' it wasn't
nothin' that I'd ever want, so I couldn't 'a' taken it off your hands
if it _had_ gone over your money."

"I wonder what I can do with it," her neighbor said feebly.

"You must hang it in the window so high 't the head don't show."

"I thought you said it didn't have no head."

Miss Clegg quitted the sofa abruptly and came over to her own chair;
the tea appeared to be beginning to take effect.

"It _hasn't_ got no head! If it had a head, where would be the sense
in hangin' it high a _tall_? It's your good luck, Mrs. Lathrop, 't it
hasn't got no head, for the man said 't if it had a head it would 'a'
brought four or five dollars easy."

Mrs. Lathrop got up and went out into the hall to seek her parrot.
When she brought it in and examined it by the light of the lamp, her
expression became more than dubious.

"What did _you_ get for your--" she asked at last.

"I didn't get nothin'. I didn't see nothin' 't I wanted, 'n' I learned
long ago 't an auction 's generally a good place f'r buyin' things 't
you don't want after you've bought 'em. Now take that parrot o'
yours!--I wouldn't have him 'f you was to offer him to me for a gift;
not to speak o' his not havin' no head, he looks to me like he had
moths in him,--you look at him by daylight to-morrow 'n' see if it
don't strike you so too."

Mrs. Lathrop was silent for a long time. Finally she said:

"Did you go to the Orphan Asylum?"

"Well--no--I did n't. I would 'a' gone only I got on the wrong car 'n'
ended in a cemetery instead. I had a nice time there, though, walkin'
roun' 'n' readin' ages, an' jus' as I was goin' out I met a monument
man 't had a place right outside the gate, 'n' he took me to look at
his things, 'n' then I remembered father--two years dead 'n' not a
stone on him yet!"

Mrs. Lathrop laid the parrot aside with a heavy sigh and concentrated
all her attention upon her friend's recital.

"The man was about 's pleasant a man 's ever I met. When I told him
about father, he told me he took a interest in every word, whether I
bought a monument of him or not. He said he'd show me all he had 'n'
welcome 'n' it was no trouble but a joy. Then he took me all through
his shop 'n' the shed behind, 'n' really I never