The Cat

by Violet Hunt

'They have found the other swallow. There are three in the nest. I looked. They must have heaved it up off the ground somehow on their broad flat backs. Oh how I wish I had seen them do it! And it looks—I can't actually swear it—as if some of the bread and milk had gone! Wonderful creatures! Now in a day or two the nestlings will probably fly away, and I shall be able to forgive Lotty!'

Sure enough, a few days after this the nest was empty. There was no other cat about the place but me, and I had not been near the shed, but had relied solely for information on what I heard Rosamond tell Beatrice. The nurse had, I am sorry to say, so little faith in human nature that she believed to the last that I had eaten them all, but Beatrice and Rosamond knew that I had not; they would have seen it in my eyes if I had, so they said.

I am called Rosamond's cat. It is Rosamond that I sit on the mat for when she is out and run to when she comes home. I am very fond of Rosamond, and I think her very good. I suppose that is the reason her mother is so fond of her. That is the one thing I can never understand. I never saw Beatrice 'bat' Rosamond as my mother 'batted' me. Instead, I see Rosamond, at sixteen, get on to her mother's knee and sit there. Beatrice evidently knows quite well that Rosamond is her child. I often wonder if Rosamond went away for a long while, whether Beatrice would not forget her, as mother forgot me while I was in Paris?

Perhaps if they do decide to send her to Paris to be 'finished,' which is talked of, when she comes back they will alter their ways, and behave like ordinary people. Rosamond doesn't go to school, but has a new governess every three months or so, so it shows that they do take pains with her.

I am not sure that I am not the reason they keep her at home. She could not look after me if she were away at school, and as it is, she is everything to me. Of course I never can love any one as much as Auntie May; even now when I see her I can't mew for happiness. I just lie in her lap and say nothing for hours, and she says to Beatrice:

'I wonder if Loki really remembers me?'

Oh, I am remembering all the time, only I can't say it! Why, there is an old fur jacket of hers that she left here once for Rosamond that I simply never let Rosamond have. I lay on it and covered it with grey hairs, that won't brush off, thank goodness! So that in the end Beatrice has given up all idea of taking it away from me, and it is called Loki's coat, not Rosamond's.

Rosamond sometimes looks at me sitting on it, and pretends to shriek, and says:

'I should be so warm this winter if Loki hadn't taken my nice winter coat for himself!'

I blink at her, and stretch out my paw, for I know it is all fun. What is Auntie May's smell, that is all over that dear coat, to Rosamond, compared with what it is to me? The oddest thing of all is that they none of Them seem to imagine how awfully fond I am of Auntie May, and how I hate Mr. Fox for taking my mistress away from me!