"No, my love," replied her husband. "The quarantine is not
a person, it is a place where they put people"; but she would not be
comforted, and suspected the quarantine as an enemy that might at any
moment pounce out upon her and her parrots. So a lady told me once that
she had been in like trouble about the anthem. She read in her prayer-
book that in choirs and places where they sing "here followeth the
anthem," yet the person with this most mysteriously sounding name never
did follow. They had a choir, and no one could say the church was not a
place where they sang, for they did sing--both chants and hymns. Why,
then, this persistent slackness on the part of the anthem, who at this
juncture should follow her papa, the rector, into the reading-desk? No
doubt he would come some day, and then what would he be like? Fair or
dark? Tall or short? Would he be bald and wear spectacles like papa, or
would he be young and good-looking? Anyhow, there was something wrong,
for it was announced that he would follow, and he never did follow;
therefore there was no knowing what he might not do next.

I heard of the parrots a year or two later as giving lessons in Italian
to an English maid. I do not know what their terms were. Alas! since
then both they and their mistress have joined the majority. When the
poor lady felt her end was near she desired (and the responsibility for
this must rest with her, not me) that the birds might be destroyed, as
fearing that they might come to be neglected, and knowing that they could
never be loved again as she had loved them. On being told that all was
over, she said, "Thank you," and immediately expired.

Reflecting in such random fashion, and strolling with no greater method,
I worked my way back through Cheapside and found myself once more in
front of Sweeting's window. Again the turtles attracted me. They were
alive, and so far at any rate they agreed with me. Nay, they had eyes,
mouths, legs, if not arms, and feet, so there was much in which we were
both of a mind, but surely they must be mistaken in arming themselves so
very heavily. Any creature on getting what the turtle aimed at would
overreach itself and be landed not in safety but annihilation. It should
have no communion with the outside world at all, for death could creep in
wherever the creature could creep out; and it must creep out somewhere if
it was to hook on to outside things. What death can be more absolute