226 ' THE FIRESIDE SPHINX 



she ? But you know I never take her seriously.' 

 Then, with renewed precaution, she would return 

 resolutely to her purpose, which was always to nes- 

 tle up against her slumbering friend, and bury her 

 head in that warm, soft, snowy fur. This accom- 

 plished, she would compose herself to sleep, with a 

 final glance of triumph in my direction, which said 

 drowsily, but distinctly, 'This is what I was after, 

 and here I am.' " 



Assuredly there was never a sweeter cat in Chris- 

 tendom than the beautiful Moumoutte Blanche. 



Readers who seek to preserve as far as possible 

 the gayety of life may be pardoned for wishing that 

 M. Loti had spared them some of the pathetic de- 

 tails in which his soul delights. The few short 

 years allotted to a cat are spent so swiftly that we 

 who linger on our way are perpetually mourning 

 some little vanished friend, — 



" doubly dead, 

 In that she died so young." 



It would be kinder not to awaken our buried grief, 

 nor probe our wounds afresh ; but he who wrote 

 " Le Livre de la Pitie et de la M ort," has no com- 

 passion for our selfishness. Every step the two 

 cats took to their graves is described with minute 

 and haunting melancholy. The black dejection 

 that seized poor Moumoutte Chinoise as her end 

 drew near ; her last sad impulse to die away from 



