Shireen and her Friends: Pages from the Life of a Persian Cat - Gordon Stables

Dick alighted on Lizzie’s head, and at once began to go through the motions of bathing and splashing in the sheen of her bonnie hair.

But Dick’s departure seems the signal for the breaking up of the party. For lo! shades of evening have begun to fall.

“And in the painted oriel of the West,
Whose panes the sunken sun incardines,
Like a fair lady at her casement, shines
The Evening Star, the star of love and rest.”

So “good-nights” are said, and hands are shaken, then slowly homewards to his bungalow, by the pathway under the lindens, swings honest Ben and his cockatoo; while the shadows deepen beneath the trees, and the blackbird trills his last sweet song.

Behind him walks Cracker—a garland of gowans around his neck—all the way to the bungalow gate. Here he stops a moment to receive Ben’s friendly farewell pat, then gives his droll old stump of a tail a shake, and trots slowly home alone.

The End.