Concerning Cats 



the mother would return to her former home, just 

 over the fence. But no. For two weeks she refused 

 all food and would not once enter the other house. 

 Then I went out for her, and hearing my voice she 

 came in and sat down before me, literally scolding me 

 for a quarter of an hour. I shall be laughed at, but 

 actual tears stood in her lovely green eyes and ran 

 down her aristocratic nose, attesting her grief and 

 accusing me, louder than her wailing, of perfidy. 



I could not keep her. She would not return to 

 her old home. I finally compromised by carrying 

 her in a covered basket a mile and a half and bestow- 

 ing her upon a friend who loves cats nearly as well 

 as I. But although she was petted, and praised, and 

 fed on the choicest of dehcacies, she would not be 

 resigned. After six weeks of mourning, she disap- 

 peared, and never was heard of more. Whether she 

 sought a new and more constant mistress, or whether, 

 in her grief at my shameless abandonment of her, 

 she went to some lonely pier and threw herself off 

 the dock, will never be known. But her reproachful 

 gaze and tearful emerald eyes haunted me all winter. 

 Many a restless night did I have to reproach myself 

 for abandoning a creature who so truly loved me; 

 and in many a dream did she return to heap shame 

 and ignominy upon my repentant head. 



This experience determined me to cherish her 

 daughter, whom, rather, I cherished as her son, imtil 

 there were three little new-bom kittens, which in a 



