Lorton has brought me! It is really so clever that it can
almost do anything. Dicky, dicky, cheep!" she chirped to my young
representative, who sat in the centre of the table, perched on a
photographic album and with his head cocked on one side. He was staring
very inquisitively at Mrs Clyde. He evidently regarded her as an
enemy; for, the feathers on his crest got ruffled.

"Indeed!" said her mother, in freezing accents--down to the temperature
of the best Wenham Lake ice!--"I'm sure Mr Lorton is very good! Still,
you know, Minnie," she continued, "that I do not like you receiving
presents in this way."

"But it is only a little bird, Mrs Clyde!" I said, at last nerved up
to the speaking-point. I thought she would have told me then and there
to take it back; and I awaited, in fear and trembling, what she would
say next.

"And he's such a little darling, mamma!" interposed Min impulsively.

Mrs Clyde could not help smiling.

"That may be quite true, my dear," she said; "but, as you know, and as
Mr Lorton is probably also aware--although he is very young to have as
yet mixed much in the world"--_cut number two_!--"it is not quite
correct for young ladies to receive presents, however trifling, from
gentlemen who are, comparatively, strangers to them, and to whom they
have been but barely introduced!"--_cut three_!

"Oh, mamma!" said Min, in an agony of maidenly shame. She coloured up
to the eyes--at the dread of having done something she ought not to have
done.

Her exclamation armed me to the teeth. I would have stood up in defence
of my darling against a hundred mammas, all cased in society's best
satire-proof steel. I determined to "carry the war into Egypt," and
opened fire accordingly.

"Pardon me, Mrs Clyde," said I, quite as frigidly as herself--"but the
fault, if error there be on either side, lies on my shoulders. I am
sure I meant no harm. I only brought the little bird as a remembrance
of your daughter's birthday, having forgotten to present it yesterday,
when her other friends made _their_ offerings."

My speech, however, produced no impression; she quickly parried my weak
thrust, returning me tierce en carte.

"But they were all _old_ friends, Mr Lorton:--_that_ made it quite a
different thing," she said, very coldly, although with the sweetest
expression. I daresay Jael smiled very pleasantly when she drove that
nail into Sisera's temple!

I thought I perceived a slight loophole fo