“Having had the sawdust removed, Mrs Rayne put down our pretty cushions, gave us a little warm milk sweetened with sugar, patted our mother, and left.
“The judging was over by the time she returned, and she was very pleased to note, that she had won first prize for the cat and first for the kittens.
“Mother was half asleep, but we—the kittens—were lively enough and full of tricks and fun. There was quite a crowd of well-dressed people around our pen watching our gambols, and so Mrs Rayne was not surprised to be told soon afterwards by the secretary, that two of her kittens were claimed at catalogue prices.
“Mrs Rayne sighed. She would just as soon have taken us all home again, she said.
“Well, my friends, I sigh when I think of my pleasant home with Mrs Rayne, and I think I see the dear old lady now, with her snow-white hair and sunny smile. I never saw my country home again, and I never saw my mistress more. But a cat that I met at a show the other day, and got conversing with in the evening when all the people had gone, told me that she had come from Mrs Rayne’s cattery, which was now no more, they having carried the old lady to her grave a year ago. Heigho! there is a deal of sorrow in this world to cats as well as men.
“Well, at the first show we were all sold to different owners. I never knew where my brothers and sisters went, but I live in hopes of some day meeting them at a show.
“That first show was not a well-conducted one, and though it was held at the Crystal Palace, the cages were placed in a draughty place, and the pens they told me at another show, to which I was sent afterwards, had been used for other animals. I don’t know how this may be; but I do know that something was wrong, for nearly a score of cats at that show caught infectious ailments, which speedily carried them off after they got home.
“Alas! my friends, I was now to have a new experience and one of a very painful nature. I had been bought, not by anyone to keep as a pet, but by a woman—I cannot say lady—who kept cats for profit and profit alone. She had no love for them, all she expected was to pocket gain by them.
“My heart sunk when I was taken into this filthy den, for it was nothing else. It was a room in a small suburban cottage, and contained no less than twenty cats and kittens of all breeds and ages. Many of these were confined in cages of the most crampy and filthy kind.
“The poor inmates indeed seemed in a woeful plight.