'It's worth three guineas if it lives, Mary,' said Rosamond through her tears. 'But it won't, and it will be my fault. I have murdered it!'
'Don't cry, pretty child!' mother said to her. 'It was Zobeide you held out of the window, and look at her sleeping so sweetly here under my paw! This is Blanch who is dying, and it is the will of Providence.'
Poor Rosamond couldn't understand her, and began to abuse her for her calmness.
'You are a heartless old thing, Petronilla, you are! Look at you, calmly nursing four kittens, while one of them is too ill even to eat!'
'Of course it will not eat. It will die,' said mother gently, and as usual Rosamond didn't understand.
'Oh yes, you may mew, and try to palaver me, but that won't stop me thinking you a heartless beast!'
'I am a beast,' answered mother sweetly.
'Oh, please, please, make it eat! or else it will starve!'
'It will starve,' said mother, but she made no opposition when Rosamond tried to make the poor little Blanch feed like the rest of us. We had never stopped eating; we knew we couldn't do anything for poor Blanch, and we knew, too, that it was Zobeide who had been held out of the window, and longed to tell May she was mistaken and put her out of her misery. When Dr. Hobday came twenty minutes later, we had to listen to Auntie May telling him the story, and asking him if that was what had made Blanch ill?
'It is very unlikely,' said he. 'This kitten was probably unhealthy from the first. It has pneumonia now, and I am afraid in such a young kitten the case is pretty well hopeless; but we will try to save it, if you think it worth while?'