THE SUSPICIOUS JACKDAW.
seat, saying aloud, as she took up her knitting, 'Well, I declare, I thought that was the butcher's boy talking to cook; an idle young fellow, that he is; brings all the gossip of the village here, I'm certain. However, this once I'm wrong; it's only gardener sitting outside the scullery, helping her to shell peas. He had better be doing that than doing nothing—which is what most of his time is passed in, I suspect.'
Here the jackdaw would give a little croak, to express his approval of the sentiment; whenever his mistress finished a speech, he made a point of either croaking or coughing, just like a human being. The foot-boy had taught him this accomplishment, and his mistress could never help laughing when she heard him cough. No more could little Patience Grey, who was Madam Mortimer's maid. She was very young, only fourteen, but then Madam Mortimer suspected that if she had an older maid she should have more trouble in keeping her in order; so she took Patience from school to wait on her, and Patience was very happy in the great old silent house, with its long oaken galleries; and as there really seemed to be nothing about her for either Madam Mortimer's or the jackdaw's suspicion to rest upon, she was very seldom scolded, though sometimes when she came into the parlor, looking rather hot and breathing quickly, her mistress would alarm her by saying, 'Patience, you've been skipping in the yard. You need not deny it, for I know you have.'
Here Patience would answer, blushing,—'I just skipped for a few minutes, ma'am, after I had done plaiting your frills.' 'Ah, you'll never be a woman,'
