"Why, the new kittens. Don't you remember the beautiful young cats that David brought to his mother the last time he came home? One of them has kittens, and Mother Jeanne says I may have my choice of them."
"Oh, yes; go by all means, my dear; and I hope you will have a pleasant day. Only be sure you are at home before dark, and mind you don't wait till it is time you were here before you set out. And, as to the kitlings, if there should be a tortoise-shell or a dark brindle, I would choose that, especially if it have a white face. Such cats are always good-tempered and good mousers."
"I believe these cats are all white," said I; "the mother is as white as snow."
Grace's face was shadowed a little.
"I don't know about that," said she doubtfully. "In Cornwall, we think that white cats bring ill-luck. My poor sister had a beautiful white cat come to her, and that very night she broke her china jug, and the next day her husband fell from the tall pear-tree and was lamed for life."
"But these are not like common cats, you know," said I, suppressing a laugh which I knew would mortally offend Grace and perhaps lose me my holiday. "They are outlandish cats, with long hair and bushy tails. I should think that would be different."
"Perhaps so; but I would think about it a little. However, I will come down and see them myself."
I tiptoed through my mother's room into my own little cell, collected my working things into the pretty foreign basket which David had brought me the last time he came home, and then, kissing my mother's pale cheek, I descended the stairs softly, and did not give a single skip till I was beyond the precincts of the tower.
"How full of notions Grace is," I said to myself. "I wonder if all the Cornish people are like that." * (N.B. † If a hare had run across my own path, or I had heard a crow on my left hand, I dare say I should have turned back from my expedition.) "But I mean to have the kitten in spite of her. As though I would give up a beautiful long-haired white cat for such a fancy as that!"
* They are, even to this day.—L. S.
† N. B.—nota bene