in an adjacent wood, sounded his note at intervals.

The house awoke to sudden life. There was an opening and shutting of
doors. Two footmen, in the mulberry and silver of the Meldrum
livery, hurried down from the terrace, carrying folding tea-tables,
with which they supplemented those of rustic oak standing
permanently under the cedar. One, promptly returned to the house;
while the other remained behind, spreading snowy cloths over each
table.



The macaw awoke, stretched his wings and flapped them twice, then
sidled up and down his perch, concentrating his attention upon the
footman.

"Mind!" he exclaimed suddenly, in the butler's voice, as a cloth,
flung on too hurriedly, fluttered to the grass.

"Hold your jaw!" said the young footman irritably, flicking the bird
with the table-cloth, and then glancing furtively at the rose-
garden.

"Tommy wants a gooseberry!" shrieked the macaw, dodging the table-
cloth and hanging, head downwards, from his perch.

"Don't you wish you may get it?" said the footman viciously.

"Give it him, somebody," remarked Tommy, in the duchess's voice.