grind for poor humanity. I would have examined the creature at once
more closely had not two of the nuns appeared with pious hands lifted
in horror at the noise. They knew me slightly but affected
displeasure at the present moment.

"Who owns this bird?" said I. It was still screaming.

"The good Sister Felicite. It is her room."

"Can I see her?"

"Ah! _non_. She is ill, so very ill. She will not live long, _cette
pauvre soeur_!"

I reflected. "Will you give her this paper without fail when I have
written upon it what I wish?"

"_Mais oui, Monsieur_!"

In the presence of the two holy women standing with their hands
devoutly crossed, and of the parrot whom I silenced as well as I
could, and in truth I appeared to have some influence over the
creature, I wrote the following upon a leaf torn out of my
scratch-book: "To the Soeur Felicite. A gentleman who, if he has not
made a great mistake, saw you once when you were Mdme. Martinetti,
asks you now if in what may be your last moments, you have anything
to tell, anything to declare, or anybody to pardon. He would also ask--
what _was done to the parrot_? He, with his friend M. De Kock, were
at your house in New York the night your husband disappeared."