Mr. and Mrs. Tracy exchanged a pitying glance. The child was intensely in earnest. Her black eyes were bent absently on the parrot who had fallen prey to an immense curiosity with regard to Gippie, and having surveyed him from the back of the chair and the mantel, and finding him harmless, was now walking cautiously around him as he lay on the hearth-rug. Presently, emboldened by his silence, she took the end of his tail in her beak. He did not move, and she gently pinched it.