"Dear child, lie down, don't talk, you are dreaming," cooed my mother, trying to force me gently down to the pillow.
I put her aside, and tried to form articulate words.
"That, cat, did, it! I saw her. I'll kill her! Let me get up."
My father came to my mother's help.
"Take the cat out of the room, Mary Eliza," he ordered calmly. And to me—"Now, Molly, we will hear what you have to say."
He heard and weighed the evidence before I was put to bed in my own room. My head still went around queerly when I raised it, but my mind was clear. He sat by me and stroked my hand gently while he got my testimony. His kindness to his orphaned niece was unfailing, but he seldom caressed her, and nobody ever romped with her. He listened to my story first, and as patiently as if he were not to hear any other.
I was hotly positive that the big cat I had seen jump from the shelf and dash by the window so close to me that I could have touched her by leaning over the sill, was Preciosa. There was no other cat of her size and color on the plantation. Beyond this conviction the prosecution had not a scrap of testimony to offer. On the side of the accused were the record of a blameless life; the lack of motive, inasmuch as the accused was fed abundantly with daily bread far more convenient for her than the raw flesh she had never desired before,—and, as a "clincher," an alibi was set up by Preciosa's mistress, who, coming into the chamber a few minutes after the disaster, had found the cat sleeping upon the rug just as she had left her when the supper bell rang,—and with never a speck of blood on her paws and fur.
"She had licked it off, then!" I stormed. "I tell you I did see her! I did! I did! I DID! Father! you know I wouldn't tell a story about it—don't you?"
"I believe that you think you saw her, my daughter. We all believe that. But you may have been mistaken. You were very much excited, and the cat ran fast, and it was in the night, recollect, and the moon is not as bright as the day. Altogether, we must take it for granted that Preciosa is not guilty, and keep a sharp lookout for the strange cat that did the mischief."
"It was Preciosa—hateful old thing!" I insisted, angry and sullen. "She ought to be killed!"