SOME CATS OF FRANCE 215 



hungry for soup is not expected to have any appe- 

 tite for fish;" — whereupon — sensible to the re- 

 proof — she would obediently lap up her little plate 

 of potage, and wait for her reward to come at fish 

 time. 



Eponine survived her brothers many years. En- 

 jolras was tragically slain. Gavroche, seduced by 

 wild companions, envying them the uneasy freedom 

 of their lives, and agreeing, doubtless, with Meyer- 

 beer's small daughter that it was a great misfortune 

 to have had genteel parents, leaped one morning 

 from an open window, and was never seen again. 

 Little Bohemian of Paris, he bartered all the luxu- 

 ries of home for the hardships, the perils, the sweet 

 transient joys that the great, cruel, beautiful, and 

 best loved city in the world gives to its vagabond 

 children. 



His place was filled by a silver-grey Angora 

 named Zizi, who spent her days in a kind of com- 

 templative trance, like a Buddhist saint. Music 

 alone could rouse her from her dreams. She would 

 listen with sleepy satisfaction, and even exert her- 

 self so far as to walk up and down the keys of the 

 piano, imitating, according to her fancy, the sounds 

 that she had heard. Zizi had little of the tact and 

 social grace which distinguished Eponine, and which 

 never deserted that adorable cat, even in advanced 

 age. Like so many famous Frenchwomen, she re- 



