'I could not help staring too, though I saw nothing but my white dressing-gown hanging on the door. Poor Pet saw more than that, I am sure. At last she sighed and took her eyes slowly off, and lay down again and never stirred. I knew by that that the ghost was no longer visible.'
'I am much obliged to you for confounding me with your feline pets,' remarked Mrs. Gilmour. 'And now I think, Beatrice, as I am rather tired, I will say good-night. Miss Graham, excuse my remarking it, but I do think you have cat on the brain!'
'She's offended,' said Beatrice, 'and now she'll cut me off with a shilling. I must say, May dear, that for a novelist you are about the most tactless person I ever knew.'
CHAPTER IX
MY FIRST MOUSE
Mrs. Gilmour was never very nice to Auntie May after that. She began to be nasty again at breakfast. Auntie May was reading her letters, and one of them was from Mrs. Dillon.
'"Admiral Togo,"' Auntie May read out, '"is the chief joy of my life." Oh listen, all of you, for you will be so much amused; I am not, for of course it seems to me the obvious and natural thing to do. "He is coming with me to my winter quarters in South Africa."'
'And Mr. Dillon—is he being left behind?' said Mrs. Gilmour. 'Though after all, what is a husband in comparison with a cat? And she is taking a hired attendant for him, and possibly a chef, and engaging a private cabin for him—of course?'
'There isn't a Mr. Dillon,' said Auntie May, shaking with laughter, 'but as far as the cabin goes, that is precisely what she is doing. She says so.'