some secret place, or whether they had torn him piecemeal, no one knew."
The Seraph sniffled. "It's nice and twagic," he said.
"What became of his great discovery?" asked Angel.
"Ay, you may well ask that. Why, the mayor said it was bewitched and held it in the flame of a candle till there was naught left of it but cinders. . . . Now, here is your boot, little master, good as new, and the cost but one shilling."
When we entered the house, we heard voices in the parlour, and found our governess there, superintending Mary Ellen at work. Mary Ellen was carefully brushing and dusting the plumage of the stuffed birds.
I stared with a new interest at those feathered members of our household, who held themselves so coldly aloof from the rest of us; asking neither gift of chickweed nor of sugar, disdaining the very air we breathed. Who knew but that yonder sad-eyed hawk had helped to tear the student! "Piecemeal" the cobbler's word for it—one could picture him with some bloody fragment, shooting straight upward, his wide pinions spread.
Mrs. Handsomebody was speaking in a complaining way to Angel.
[259]
