was so prejudicial to
Sweetie-weet's delicate constitution as to have _damp_ wood beneath his
_precious_ little feet. Consequently all the perches had _just_ to be
taken out again, dried before the kitchen fire, and put back once more.
When this mandate went forth, the glee in the bright black eyes in
Sweetie-weet's yellow head was unmistakable. He shared Miss Ann's
mania for keeping people busy.

When, at last, the second installation of perches was over, and the
cage was suspended from the brass chain in the sunny window,
Sweetie-weet poured forth a shrill crescendo of ear-piercing
sarcasm--"a little song of praise" Miss Ann called it--directed full at
the hot and exhausted friend, who was applying a pocket-handkerchief to
the wire scratches on the back of her hand, and trying to smile at Miss
Ann's recital of all Emma would say, when she found that her special
privilege and delight--the cleaning of Sweetie-weet--had been wrested
from her by the over-zealous friend. As a matter of fact, jaded Emma's
personal remarks about Sweetie-weet, during the perch-drying process in
the kitchen, had been of a nature which would not bear repeating in
Sweetie-weet's presence, and had provided the only amusement the friend
had got out of the whole performance.

When Christobel Charteris arrived at Shiloh, she found Miss Ann on the
green velvet sofa, looking very frail and ethereal; a Shetland shawl
about her shoulders, fastened by the largest and most mysterious of her
hair-brooches--a gold-mounted oval brooch, in which a weeping willow of
fair hair drooped over a sarcophagus of dark hair; while a crescent
moon of grey hair kept watch over both. This funereal collection of
family hair always possessed a weird fascination for small children,
brought by their parents to call upon Miss Ann. The most
undemonstrative became affectionate, and hastened with ready docility
to the sofa to kiss Miss Ann, in order to obtain a closer view, and to
settle the much disputed point as to the significance of a small round
object in the left-hand corner at the bottom. In fact, to the
undisguised dismay of his mother, a sturdy youngster once emerged from
Miss Ann's embrace, exclaiming eagerly to his little sister: "It's a
furze-bush, _not_ a hedgehog!" An unfortunate remark, which might have
been taken by Miss Ann to refer to even more personal matters than a
detail in her brooch.

Christobel herself was not altogether free from the spell of t