"Ain't 'e got a funny morsel of a nose. Sich a cheeky nose; such a teeny one. You could bite it. You—you——"
She lifted the absurd little animal to her face, and rubbed her cheek against his cosy side, and she kissed his impertinent nose.
"Oo's a precious, then!" continued Prudence. "Oo's a sleepy precious. My, 'e's a sleepy little 'elpless little lump of fat! Ain't you, boy? What price a see-saw, fat boy?"
She held him so that he hung by his shoulders in an attitude that was not suggestive of dignity. And she dandled and bounced him in a manner with which kittens are not familiar. She lifted him to her face again, and made as if to kiss the nose once more.
But the lips, half bunched for that purpose, parted suddenly, as if with pain—as if with wonder—as if with horror. The kitten slipped from her fingers, and fell with an indignant mew into the soft, warm haven of her lap. And Prudence's hands went up to her startled face, and her hair fell over her like a shroud, and she sobbed as women sob.
"Oh, Gawd!" she cried; "its eyes, its eyes! Its little, winkin' eyes! Oh, mother, mother!"
XXV
A TALK WITH JAMES
I had extinguished the flame of the doctor's gas-stove, and was warming myself on the lid, when James burst in and interrupted me.
"Come off it, like a dear, and listen," said James. "I've had a proposal!"