“I’m sure Dennis and Maisie don’t have kittens to sleep with them,” said the former.
“Then you’re just wrong,” said Philippa triumphantly, “because Dennis’s dog Peter always sleeps in his room, and that’s just the same.”
The white kitten had now struggled out of her clutches, and was wandering sadly round the room in search of its old friends and relations. It seemed likely to make one more subject for dispute at Haughton Park, where from the time Philippa got up till she went to bed, there was already no end to the wrangling. Confused by finding itself in a strange land where nothing familiar met its eye, it at last took refuge under a book-case, and when Philippa looked round, it was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, my darling little kitten is lost!” she exclaimed.
Miss Mervyn, who did not like cats or any other animals, would not have been sorry if this had been the case, but Philippa was preparing to shed a torrent of tears, and this must be avoided at any cost.
“Hush, my dear,” she said, folding her gown closely round her; “we will find it. It cannot have gone far.”
Cats, in Miss Mervyn’s experience, were shy treacherous things which always hid themselves, and jumped out from unexpected places. So she now proceeded cautiously round the room, peeping into dark corners and behind curtains, as if some dangerous animal were lurking there. There was no place too small or too unlikely that she did not thoroughly examine, but it was Philippa who at last caught sight of a pair of green eyes gleaming in the darkness under the book-case.
“There it is!” she cried, and casting herself flat on the floor, she stretched out her arm and dragged it out by one leg. But she did not hold it long, for the white kitten, frightened, and quite unused to such rough treatment, put out its sharp little claws to defend itself.
“Oh!” screamed Philippa at the top of her voice. She flung the kitten from her, and stretched out her arm piteously; on it there was a long scratch, just beginning to bleed a little.
“The nasty, spiteful thing!” exclaimed Miss Mervyn. “My darling Philippa! what will your mother say? Come, my love, we will bathe it, and it will soon be better, and the savage little kitten shall be sent away.”