Slyboots liked this, and here I sat all the afternoon with her, while Mary and her mother went driving. Mr. Denville took them, and Mona, and Dolly, and Barlo followed after the carriage. They took Mona somewhere to have her hair cut, and when they came home I laughed so heartily at her appearance that I rolled right over on the veranda.
Her magnificent coat was all gone, except a ruff round her neck, and a little tuft on the end of her tail. It was too ludicrous to see her. She seemed shorn of her glory, but, of course, she could not see how ridiculous she looked, and she acted just the same as ever.
I ran down to see her just before supper, and had a long talk with her. She was lying out under one of the trees on the lawn, and I crept up beside her and purred all my troubles in her sympathetic ear.
“You can't do anything with Serena,” she said, “let her go on and learn her lesson. I fancy, from what you tell me, that Blizzard, is going to play her some trick. He won't hurt her, don't you be afraid. She is too conceited. She wants taking down.”
“But she is my sister!” I said.
“Well, you stand ready to comfort her after her pride has had a fall. Blizzard and Rosy don't like her, and I don't think they have any idea of hurting anything but her self-conceit.”
“That is all very well,” I replied, “but I should like to know what they are planning.”
Mona looked round her in a puzzled way. “I don't know what I can do to help you, unless I could make some cat confess what is going on. There is Joker. Just you step out of sight.”
I did as she told me, and then watched her as she slowly sauntered out toward the road via the orchard. She was sniffing at the ground as if in search of bones that had been buried, and Joker coming deliberately home from Blizzard's farm, had no suspicion that Mona had designs upon him.
He knew perfectly well that Mona was used to cats, and had no idea of hurting them, so I fancy he was a pretty surprised young fellow, when Mona gave one bound, and laid her great paw on him.