returned, she found no parrot! She hunted among
the bushes, on the bank of the river, and on the roofs, without
paying any attention to Madame Aubain who screamed at her: "Take
care! you must be insane!" Then she searched every garden in
Pont-l'Eveque and stopped the passers-by to inquire of them:
"Haven't you perhaps seen my parrot?" To those who had never seen
the parrot, she described him minutely. Suddenly she thought she
saw something green fluttering behind the mills at the foot of the
hill. But when she was at the top of the hill she could not see
it. A hod-carrier told her that he had just seen the bird in
Saint-Melaine, in Mother Simon's store. She rushed to the place.
The people did not know what she was talking about. At last she came
home, exhausted, with her slippers worn to shreds, and despair in
her heart. She sat down on the bench near Madame and was telling
of her search when presently a light weight dropped on her
shoulder--Loulou! What the deuce had he been doing? Perhaps he had
just taken a little walk around the town!

She did not easily forget her scare, in fact, she never got over
it. In consequence of a cold, she caught a sore throat; and some
time afterward she had an earache. Three years later she was stone
deaf, and spoke in a very loud voice even in church. Although her
sins might have been proclaimed throughout the diocese without any
shame to herself, or ill effects to the community, the cure
thought it advisable to receive her confession in the vestry-room.

Imaginary buzzings also added to her bewilderment. Her mistress
often said to her: "My goodness, how stupid you are!" and she
would answer: "Yes, Madame," and look for something.

The narrow circle of her ideas grew more restricted than it
already was; the bellowing of the oxen, the chime of the bells no
longer reached her intelligence. All things moved silently, like
ghosts. Only one noise penetrated her ears: the parrot's voice.

As if to divert her mind, he reproduced for her the tick-tack of
the spit in the kitchen, the shrill cry of the fish-vendors, the
saw of the carpenter who had a shop opposite, and when the
door-bell rang, he would imitate Madame Aubain: "Felicite! go to
the front door."

They held conversations together, Loulou repeating the three
phrases of his repertory over and over, Felicite replying by words
that had no greater meaning, but in which she poured out her
feelings. In her isolation, the parrot was al