“I can get it mended, I know. There is some beautiful white cement used for such articles. O, Rose, I am so sorry! I’d get you another one, only it wouldn’t be it.”
“Never mind,” I said, meekly, with a wonderful tendency towards tears, though whether they would have been for Harry, or the knife, or myself, I could not exactly tell.
So he had it mended, and it looked as good as new. But little Frank Mortimer came to call with his mother, and brought it to grief again.
The other event that reconciled me to the advent of my little sister, whom I had not yet seen, was Tabby, who sprang up on the window sill, with her cunning salutation, like three or four n’s, strung together in a prolonged musical fashion, not quite a mew. I don’t want you to think the word back there was meant for a pun, for it wasn’t. I’ll tell you in the beginning that I am not a bit bright, or sharp, or funny. I have even heard jokes that I did not see the point of until the next day.
Tabby is just as beautiful as she can be. A Maltese cat, with a white nose and two white front paws. She is very cunning, and knows almost everything within the domain of cat knowledge. If there is one thing I do love better than another, in the way of pets, it is cats. A clean-faced, sleek cat, sitting on the hearth-rug before the grate, is enough to give the whole household a feeling of contentment. Then the kittens are always so funny and frolicksome!
“Tabby,” I said, as she arched her back and rubbed her head against my sleeve,—“Tabby, you wouldn’t be half so happy if there was a boy in the house. He would lift you by the tail, turn your ears back, put walnut shells on your feet, and make you dance on your hind legs. Then he would be forever tormenting your kittens. Boys are bad naturally. Maybe they are born so, and can’t help it,” I continued, reflectively. “I suppose they do have a good deal more of the old Adam in them than girls, because, you see, we inherit Eve’s propensity to curiosity; but then boys are fully as curious—aren’t they, Tabby? and as full of curiosity!”
“Yes,” answered Tabby.
She says it as plainly as you do. In fact, we sometimes hold quite lengthy conversations.
“So we don’t care—do we? If Aunt Letty Perkins would not make such a row about it! How would she like to have a lot of boys, I wonder?”
Tabby shook her head sagely, and scratched her left ear. I knew she felt just the same as I did.