The sword hung above his bed, with the helmet and breast-plate Uncle James had given him last Christmas.
‘I’m not a fairy Prince,’ said the child. ‘I’m Tavy—and I love you.’
‘You love your mother better,’ said the Cat. ‘Come cut my head off. The story always ends like that. You love mother best. It’s for her sake.’
‘Yes.’ Tavy was trying to think it out. ‘Yes, I love mother best. But I love you. And I won’t cut off your head,—no, not even for mother.’
‘Then,’ said the Cat, ‘I must do what I can!’
She stood up, waving her white china tail, and before Tavy could stop her she had leapt, not, as before, into his arms, but on to the wide hearthstone.
It was all over—the China Cat lay broken
[p156 inside the high brass fender. The sound of the smash brought mother running.
‘What is it?’ she cried. ‘Oh, Tavy—the China Cat!’
‘She would do it,’ sobbed Tavy. ‘She wanted me to cut off her head’n I wouldn’t.’