“If he could only TELL us where he feels the worst!” said Cecily piteously. “It’s so dreadful to see him suffering and not be able to do a single thing to help him!”
“I don’t think he’s suffering much now,” I said comfortingly.
The Story Girl said nothing. She passed and repassed her long brown hand gently over her pet’s glossy fur. Pat lifted his head and essayed to creep a little nearer to his beloved mistress. The Story Girl drew his limp body close in her arms. There was a plaintive little mew—a long quiver—and Paddy’s friendly soul had fared forth to wherever it is that good cats go.
“Well, he’s gone,” said Dan, turning his back abruptly to us.
“It doesn’t seem as if it can be true,” sobbed Cecily. “This time yesterday morning he was full of life.”
“He drank two full saucers of cream,” moaned Felicity, “and I saw him catch a mouse in the evening. Maybe it was the last one he ever caught.”
“He did for many a mouse in his day,” said Peter, anxious to pay his tribute to the departed.
“‘He was a cat—take him for all in all. We shall not look upon his like again,’” quoted Uncle Blair.
Felicity and Cecily and Sara Ray cried so much that Aunt Janet lost patience completely and told them sharply that they would have something to cry for some day—which did not seem to comfort them much. The Story Girl shed no tears, though the look in her eyes hurt more than weeping.
“After all, perhaps it’s for the best,” she said drearily. “I’ve been feeling so badly over having to go away and leave Paddy. No matter how kind you’d all be to him I know he’d miss me terribly. He wasn’t like most cats who don’t care who comes and goes as long as they get plenty to eat. Paddy wouldn’t have been contented without me.”