But we soon regained our courage, and father and mother stood aside to see us play with it. Whenever it escaped they brought it back.
At last the poor little morsel, all wet and bedraggled, stood up on its hind legs in front of father, and wagged its two wee naked hands in front of its nose. Mother told me afterwards what it was saying.
“Oh, kill me please,” it pleaded. “Kill me quick and put me out of pain.”
Chapter Four.
“You Must have a Name, My Lovely Flower.”
Hitherto, continued Shireen, shifting her position on the footstool to one of greater comfort, hitherto, my children, the life of brother and myself had been all indoors. We knew of no other world than that bounded by the four walls of the room around us, and it never occurred to me to wonder where our lion-like father obtained the birds which he never forgot to bring mother daily.
À propos of Shireen’s father bringing the mother pussy the birds, I have a little anecdote to tell that is not without its humorous side. Some years ago I possessed a very large and handsome half-Persian white Tom, whom the children called Jujube. This cat, being allowed to roam the world at the freedom of his own will, formed an attachment with a neighbour’s lady-cat, and married her. I was not invited to the marriage, so do not know when it took place, nor what speeches were made at the wedding-breakfast. However, in course of time, Mrs G—’s cat was about to have kittens, and, not having any knowledge of how cats should be treated under such circumstances, she rather cruelly turned her out of doors. It happened at this time that Mrs G— had also twenty-one young chickens. And now they began to disappear at the rate of one every day, and so on for nineteen days. Her cat had also disappeared, and could not be found. But on the nineteenth day the mystery was explained, for walking in my orchard I happened to look between two tall hedges, and there, on a nest of dry leaves was the mother cat, with five beautiful kittens. Poor Ju had brought her here, had made the warm nest for her, and gone every day back to her old home and brought her a chicken. Ju had evidently reasoned that although Mrs G— had turned her out, she ought to be well-fed at the expense of her mistress. Hence, the robbery of the chicken-roost.
He did not come in through the curtained doorway that led out into the orangery with its fountains and its flowers, but leapt down from a window that was too high for us to reach.