“Oh, quit that,” said Jimmy Dory. “Tell us about your adventures. We saw the boy grab you, now go on. Mrs. Darley didn't tell half enough when she came from the cats' home.”
I began from the beginning. I told them about the bad boys and the good old man, and the good young one, and the cats' home, and dear little Mary Denville. Then I said anxiously, “Have you missed me?”
No one said a word, but my mother began to polish off my head, just as she had done every day since I was a tiny kitten. Indeed, the first thing I remember was my mother licking the top of my head. Just now, she polished off one ear, she polished off the other, she made me lower my head so she could get at the back of my neck, and as she licked, I was comforted. My dear mother had missed me, if the others hadn't.
My father was clearing his throat. “Well, you see,” he said with a proud, approving glance at me, “cats are attached to their offspring, but they are well pleased to see them settled in life—comfortably settled, I mean. Now I should say that, your first catastrophe over, you had fallen on your feet. The Denvilles' establishment is a very fine one.”
“Are you happy there?” purred my mother in my ear.
“Now I am,” I mewed softly. “At first I was dreadfully miserable——” Then I raised my voice. “I am not complaining,” I said, addressing my father. “That would be ungrateful. Why, I am first in the affections of my little mistress. I believe she likes me better than she does her parents.”
“Hem! hem!” growled my father doubtfully, while Serena and Jimmy Dory burst out laughing.
“Well, anyway,” I said in some confusion, “she just surrounds me with comfort from morning till night. She never leaves me. I go everywhere with her, and there is not another cat about the place.”
“Then there must be dogs,” cried Jimmy Dory promptly, “and we all love dogs—oh! yes!”
“Yes, there are dogs,” I returned snappishly, “but they were kept away from me at first so they wouldn't frighten me.”