“Oh, do you think so, really?”
Even Mrs. Bryan, who was not very imaginative, got the idea that the little creature had some standard in her mind, measured by which she found these men very small.
Mrs. Leith spent almost her entire time in her own room, sometimes singing to herself, to a guitar accompaniment, impassioned love songs that made her tremble from head to foot with emotion, and often break into uncontrollable weeping. When she was in her not infrequent fits of despondency, even Fleecy was no comfort to her, and she would sometimes complain that she slept so contentedly on the rug.
“She doesn’t love me. She only wants to eat and sleep and be comfortable,” she said one day, in an outburst of despair. “Oh, nobody loves me, nobody loves me! If God would only let me die!”
“Mauma loves you, honey,” the old woman answered. “God ain’ gwine tek you ’way from po’ ole Mauma.”
“What’s the use of your loving me, when you don’t love Bertie? You hate him, and you hate Fleecy, too—you know you do! I don’t want anybody to love me, if they don’t love them. Oh, I’m so wretched!” and she went off into low wails of anguish that subsided, as usual, in sleep.
Many a time would old Mauma sit and hold her so, until her arms and shoulders ached. Small and childish as she was, she was much heavier than a child, but she had no more than a child’s consideration for the trouble she gave, and Mauma would no more have reproached her with this than a mother her baby.
Mrs. Bryan, out of sheer pity, began to feel herself growing attached to her boarder. She seemed to make, however, but little progress in her acquaintance, and things remained just as they had begun, until there came a break in the monotony of their intercourse, caused by the sudden illness of Fleecy.
Mrs. Leith flew wildly downstairs, one morning, her face pallid with fear, and dragged the astonished widow up the stairs, exclaiming that Fleecy was dying. When they got into the room, the big white cat was lying on the lounge, stretching and jerking its body, and giving every indication of the vulgar malady of fits. Mauma was bending over the lounge, but her little mistress flew at her and pulled her away.
“You shan’t touch her,” she cried, angrily, “go away! You have always hated her, and you’ll be glad if she dies! Oh, Mrs. Bryan, you will help me! Do you think she is going to die? Oh, Fleecy, Fleecy, my poor baby, don’t go and leave me! You are all I’ve got in the world.”