SOME CATS OF FRANCE 221 



" For the first time I looked attentively at the 

 little visitor who for two weeks had shared my lodg- 

 ings. She was tawny as a wild hare, and spotted 

 like a leopard. Only her face and neck were white. 

 Certainly an ugly and attenuated cat, yet perhaps 

 her very ugliness had in it a piquancy which ap- 

 pealed to the discriminating mind. For one thing, 

 she was so unlike the beautiful cats of France." 

 (Alas ! poor Moumoutte Blanche !) " Stealthy and 

 sinuous, with great ears standing erect, and a pre- 

 posterously long tail, she had nothing attractive 

 save her eyes, — the deep, golden orange eyes of 

 the Orient, unquiet, and wonderfully expressive. 



" While I watched her, I carelessly laid my hand 

 on her head, and stroked for the first time the yellow 

 fur. It was not mere physical pleasure that she 

 felt in the caress ; but a consciousness of protec- 

 tion, of sympathy in her abandonment. It was for 

 this she had crept from her hiding-place ; it was for 

 this, and not for food or drink, that she had come 

 to beg, after so much wistful hesitation. Her little 

 cat soul implored some company, some friendship 

 in a lonely world. 



" Where had she learned this need, poor outcast 

 Pussy, never before touched by a kindly hand ; 

 never the object of affection, unless, indeed, the 

 paternal junk held some forlorn Chinese child, as 

 joyless, as famished, as friendless as herself; — a 



