Concerning Still Other People's Cats 



he shall remain.' After a few weak remonstrances, 

 the futility of which I too clearly understood, her 

 persistence carried the day. I removed my clothing 

 from the closet, spread a shawl upon the floor, had 

 the door taken from its hinges, and resigned myself, 

 for the first time in my life, to the daily and hourly 

 companionship of an infant. 



" I was amply rewarded. People who require the 

 household cat to rear her offspring in some remote 

 attic or dark corner of the cellar have no idea of all 

 thP diversion and pleasure that they lose. It is 

 delightful to watch the little, blind, sprawling, feeble, 

 helpless things develop swiftly into the grace and 

 agility of kittenhood. It is dehghtful to see the 

 mingled pride and anxiety of the mother, whose 

 parental love increases with every hour of care, and 

 who exhibits her young family as if they were infant 

 Gracchi, the hope of all their race. During Nero's 

 extreme youth, there were times when Agrippina 

 wearied both of his companionship and of her own 

 maternal duties. Once or twice she abandoned him 

 at night for the greater luxury of my bed, where she 

 slept tranquilly by my side, unmindful of the little 

 wailing cries with which Nero lamented her deser- 

 tion. Once or twice the heat of early summer 

 tempted her to spend the evening on the porch 

 roof which lay beneath my windows, and I have 

 passed some anxious hours awaiting her return, 

 and wondering what would happen if she never 



77 



