THE CAT TO-DAY 255 



ing the dead kittens with pitying hands, and refus- 

 ing to reinstate her into favour. The lesson was not 

 lost. Another litter arrived in the course of time, 

 and was endured with tolerable patience ; a third 

 awoke some languid interest in the maternal heart ; 

 and she lived to rear a dozen families, — a solicitous, 

 painstaking, but never affectionate parent. 



The second criminal was a New England cat, 

 and the motive for the crime was the same, — an 

 aversion to the care of children, and an unwilling- 

 ness to exchange the drawing-room rug for the 

 kitchen fire. This mother deliberately carried out 

 her kittens one by one, and dropped them in the 

 water-butt ; then returned to the house with a brow 

 as calm as if her conscience were at rest, and no 

 little dripping corpses could trouble her repose. 



" She 's ta'en the ribbons frae her hair. 

 And bound their bodies fast and sair. 



She 's put them aneath a marble stane, 

 Thinking a maid to gae her hame." 



But how rare these instances of depravity, and 

 how perpetual the proofs of Pussy's maternal love ! 

 What terrors fill her anxious little heart, when — 

 warned by bitter experience — she tries to hide her 

 unwelcome family from human eyes. In attic, in 

 cellar, in barn or stable, she tucks them out of sight, 

 stealing to them with many pitiful precautions, lest 



