I therefore hoped that, though I could not see her, he was aware of Sulky’s presence, and was hugging to himself hopes of domestic bliss.
And, sure enough, one bright morning I peeped out at 6 a.m., to see Fritz tearing across the lawn, as fast as his little legs could carry him, towards the stump, where Sulky was boldly cracking nuts, looking exceedingly well and pretty. I saw her lift the cocoanut shell with her little fore paws from off the cob nuts, and she tucked in an excellent breakfast. Fritz, being the gentleman he always was, would not disturb her, but came up the ivy to me, where his antics betokened great happiness.
From that day the name of Sulky was dropped, and became “Mrs. Fritz.”
By the 17th March Miss Appleton required Laurence Housman no longer as a model, so she brought him down to me at Hook Heath.
She had secured his sleeping-box (while he was curled up in it for a nap), wrapped it in thick brown paper, wired it across the holes, and held it in her lap all the time in tubes and train.
“I suppose he is here, and I suppose he is alive,” she said when she arrived; “but I have not heard the ghost of a sound, nor felt the faintest wriggle in the box. I hope he has not died of fright!”
We put the package down for a moment upon the sofa, when, to our amusement and relief, there immediately came forth squeaks and grunts of expostulation.
“Poor little fellow! how cramped he must be,” we exclaimed; and proceeded forthwith to place him, box and all, within the spacious squirrel-house in the garden. This was safely accomplished by Smithers, good man—as kind and interested in my pets as ever.