“Perhaps you’re too rough with it,” returned Owen.
“No, it ain’t that; it’s just because it’s old.”
“You know cats is just the same as people,” explained the little girl, wisely. “When they’re grown up I suppose they’ve got their troubles to think about.”
Owen wondered how long it would be before her troubles commenced. As he gazed at these two little orphans he thought of his own child, and of the rough and thorny way they would all three have to travel if they were so unfortunate as to outlive their childhood.
“Can we ’ave it, mister?” repeated the boy.
Owen would have liked to grant the children’s request, but he wanted the kitten himself. Therefore he was relieved when their grandmother exclaimed:
“We don’t want no more cats ’ere: we’ve got one already; that’s quite enough.”
She was not yet quite satisfied in her mind that the creature was not an incarnation of the Devil, but whether it was or not she did not want it, or anything else of Owen’s, in this house. She wished he would go, and take his kitten or his familiar or whatever it was, with him. No good could come of his being there. Was it not written in the Word: “If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.” She did not know exactly what Anathema Maran-atha meant, but there could be no doubt that it was something very unpleasant. It was a terrible thing that this blasphemer who—as she had heard—did not believe there was a Hell and said that the Bible was not the Word of God, should be here in the house sitting on one of their chairs, drinking from one of their cups, and talking to their children.
The children stood by wistfully when Owen put the kitten under his coat and rose to go away.
As Linden prepared to accompany him to the front door, Owen, happening to notice a timepiece standing on a small table in the recess at one side of the fireplace, exclaimed: