Then Auntie May stopped, because she wasn't selfish, and let Mary put her to bed, and went to sleep very soon after. I asked mother if she wouldn't mind telling me why she had licked Blanch so hard.
'My dear child,' mother said, 'I daresay you and Auntie May consider me very unfeeling, and think it very odd that she should do all the crying instead of me; but then you must realise that I was never in favour of nursing Blanch and trying to keep her alive. She was delicate and bound to die sooner or later. It is a great mistake to try to preserve the lives of kittens that are weak and feeble from the very beginning, and no sensible cat would ever countenance such a proceeding. They do as they choose with theirs, and a nice lot of invalids, cripples, and criminals They raise up to make difficulties afterwards for them! As a matter of fact, Blanch was cured of her illness, and I don't deny any of the credit to Auntie May of having done it—I couldn't have done it myself—but, as the doctor will tell her to-morrow, the child died of heart-failure. I knew it would go like that. When they called me in I had to do something for form's sake, and I licked her. Poor little dear, we must forget about this closing scene of her very short career, and try to grow up healthy ourselves. That I look upon as a cat's first duty. You ask why? In the battle of life the weaklings must go under. Now feed properly and don't choke, as you are sure to do if you are greedy and in too much of a hurry.'
Rosamond was told about Blanch next day, and she cried too. Fresh from my mother's lecture I looked upon her almost with disgust. The silly child talked of going into mourning, and, sure enough, she found an old bit of black crape somewhere and sewed it on the arm of her frock. I had no patience with her. We relations were, on the contrary, forbidden to make any difference, and mother was even gay, though I noticed a tear in her eyes sometimes when nobody was looking. I heard Rosamond propose to bring poor Blanch, who by now, she said, had grown quite stiff, to show to her mother for a last look before she was buried; but, to mother's great relief, Mary had taken Blanch and buried her before breakfast by Auntie May's orders.
'Don't be morbid, my dear child!' Auntie May said, when Rosamond complained of what Mary had done. 'I don't like any one to gloat over funerals, much less children. You must forget Blanch, poor dear Blanch, who made such a brave fight for her life, and remember that there are four left.'
So you see in the main she said the same thing as mother, which convinces me, as I said before, that she knew a good deal about cats.
CHAPTER III
TO LAP OR NOT TO LAP
'It is time they were taught to lap!' said Auntie May.
'Oh, Auntie May,' cried Rosamond, 'how dreadfully exciting! I was wondering when you were going to begin that! It will be dreadfully exciting, won't it?'