OUR CHARLIE AND STRAY CATS, ^l 



ternity, consequently my garden has become 

 the regular rendezvous of all the cats in the 

 neighbourhood. Here come highly respec- 

 table, prudish-looking cats with little leather 

 straps or ribbons and tinkling little bells 

 round their necks, properly educated and 

 genteel-looking, and here is also the favourite 

 resort of many stray cats, wild and villainous, 

 sneaking, lurching, evil-minded, thieving 

 cats, whom nobody owns poor, outcast, 

 miserable starved wretches. 



One of these I found last autumn beneath 

 a broken glass shade under which she had 

 crept, and there become the mother of two 

 kittens . There we left her ; we could not 

 find it in our hearts to drive her away, so 

 fondly did she tend her little helpless bant- 

 lings. She was perfectly wild and untame- 

 able. We used to put outside her nest a plate 

 of bread and milk, which she immediately 

 consumed when we were out of sight. 



One morning, when the kittens were a 

 month old, we found her stretched out dead, 

 and the poor little orphans scrambling over 

 her ; they were so wild that we could not 

 approach them. Goodness knows, we didn't 

 want any more cats about the place, but we 

 felt bound to feed these little motherless 

 creatures. We could never catch them, 



