Greville, who made conversation with her very pleasantly.
She was much grieved to perceive, from what that lady said, that Mrs.
Merrifield was thought to be much more ill, and in a far more
alarming state, than she had at all understood. The girls were too
young to enter into the tone of sad sympathy with which Mrs. Greville
spoke, and the manner in which a doubt was expressed whether the
Captain would be able to sail with Admiral Penrose if he should have
the offer; and as soon as she saw that they and their governess were
in ignorance, she turned it off; but she had said enough to fill
Christabel with anxiety and desire to know more; and as soon as the
dinner was over, and the little girls had run off together to visit
Ida's beautiful cockatoo in the conservatory, she turned to Fraulein
Munsterthal, and begged to hear whether she knew more than had been
said.
Fraulein Munsterthal did not quite know that such a person as Mrs.
Merrifield was in existence; but she was very amiable and warm-
hearted, and said how sad it was to think of the trouble that hung
over "these so careless children," and was doubly kind to the girls
when they came back from their conversation with pretty "Cocky," who
set up his lemon-coloured crest, coughed, sneezed, and said "Cocky
want a biscuit!" to admiration, till the boys were seen approaching;
when Ida, knowing that some torment would follow, took herself and
her visitors back to the protection of the governesses in time to
prevent the cockatoo from being made to fly at the girls, and powder
them with the white dust under his feathers.
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