ith a silver hoop about his
waist, and a chain thereto attached; two King Charles's dogs, whose
barking subsided after a while; and one gray parrot on a perch in the
bow-window, who happily was not in a very chatty mood just then. So the
human animals were able to edge in a sentence easily enough. And Mr.
Dangerfield said--

'I'm happy in having found you, Madam; for whatever be my
disappointments else, to Miss Rebecca Chattesworth at least I owe a debt
of gratitude, which, despairing to repay it, I can only acknowledge; and
leaving unacknowledged, I should have departed from Ireland most
unhappily.'

'What a fop! what a fop,' said the parrot.

'You rate my poor wishes too highly, Mr. Dangerfield. I over-estimated,
myself, my influence with the young lady; but why speak of your
departure, Sir, so soon? A little time may yet work a change.'

'You lie, you dog! you lie, you lie, you lie,' said the parrot.

'Madam,' said he with a shake of his head, ''tis hoping against hope.
Time will add to _my_ wrinkles without softening _her_ aversion. I
utterly despair. While there remained one spark of hope I should never
have dreamed of leaving Chapelizod.'

Here there was a considerable pause, during which the parrot
occasionally repeated, 'You lie, you lie--you dog--you lie.'

'Of course, Sir, if the chance be not worth waiting for, you do well to
be gone wherever your business or your pleasures, Sir, invite you,' said
Aunt Becky, a little loftily.

'What a fop!' said the parrot. 'You lie, you dog!'

'Neither business, Madam, nor pleasures invite me. My situation here has
been most distressing. So long as hope cheered me, I little regarded
what might be said or thought; but I tell you honestly that hope is
extinguished; and it has grown to me intolerable longer to remain in
sight of that treasure for which I cannot cease to wish, and which I
never can possess. I've grown, Madam, to detest the place.'

Aunt Becky, with her head very high, adjusted in silence, the two China
mandarins on the mantelpiece--first, one very carefully, then the other.
And there was a pause, during which one of the lap-dogs screamed; and
the monkey, who had boxed his ears, jumped, with a ringing of his chain,
chattering, on the back of the arm-chair in which the grim suitor sat.
Mr. Dangerfield would have given the brute a slap in the face, but that
he knew how that would affect Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.

'So, Madam,' said he, standing up abr