"If the old lady is going on to Cheltenham we'll travel third class before we'll sit in the same carriage again with that bird," said Morton laughing as he took Mary into the refreshment-room.

But the old lady did not get into the same compartment as they started, and the last that was heard of the parrot at Hinxton was a quarrel between him and the guard as to certain railway privileges.
When they had got back into the railway carriage Morton was very anxious to ask whether she was in truth engaged to marry the young man as to whose good fellowship she and the parrot had spoken up so emphatically, but he hardly knew how to put the question.

And were she to declare that she was engaged to him, what should he say then?
Would he not be bound to congratulate her?
And yet it would be impossible that any word of such congratulation should pass his lips.
"You will stay a month at Cheltenham ?" he said.
"Your aunt was kind enough to ask me for so long." "I shall go back on Saturday.

If I were to stay longer I should feel myself to be in her way.

And I have come to live a sort of hermit's life.