"It's all we can do to support that menagerie in the garden without
starting an orphan asylum. Babies, as well as cats and dogs, cost
money."

"Yes, yes, I know, Miss Jenkins," replied my companion eagerly, her face
bright with some inner sunbeam of hope, "but wait till I tell you of a
darling plan. The other day I saw the nicest sign over a door. It said
'Moderated and modified milk for babies and small animals.' It's tin,
the milk I mean, and that is what I am going to feed them on. It's so
filling."

"Beautifully simple, and tin milk must be so nourishing, is it not?" I
snapped, ruffled by Miss Gray's never-defeated hopefulness. "Of course
the kind gentleman who keeps this magic food, stands at the door and
hands it out by the bucketful."

That was before I learned that sarcasm could no more pierce Jane's
optimism, than a hair would cut a diamond.

"No," she answered sweetly, "he sits on the floor, and takes cans from a
box. He gets money for it, but I am going to make a grand bargain with
him. I am going to trade him a package of tracts and that cunning
parrakeet for milk."

"How do you know he wants parrots or tracts?" I said.

"Oh, yes, he does. I talked to him. He showed me a faded old tract he
had been reading every day for twenty years. Now his eyes are failing.
He can get his customers to read a new one to him. He wants the bird for