But her reproachful gaze and tearful
emerald eyes haunted me all winter. Many a restless night did I have to
reproach myself for abandoning a creature who so truly loved me; and in
many a dream did she return to heap shame and ignominy upon my repentant
head.
This experience determined me to cherish her daughter, whom, rather, I
cherished as her son, until there were three little new-born kittens,
which in a moment of ignorance I "disposed of" at once. Naturally, the
young mother fell exceedingly ill. In the most pathetic way she dragged
herself after me, moaning and beseeching for help. Finally, I succumbed,
went to a neighbor's where several superfluous kittens had arrived the
night before, and begged one. It was a little black fellow, cold and
half dead; but the Pretty Lady was beside herself with joy when I
bestowed it upon her. For two days she would not leave the box where I
established their headquarters, and for months she refused to wean it,
or to look upon it as less than absolutely perfect. I may say that the
Pretty Lady lived to be nine years old, and had, during that brief
period, no less than ninety-three kittens, besides two adopted ones; but
never did she bestow upon any of her own offspring that wealth of pride
and affection which was showered upon black Bobbie.
When the first child of her adoption was two weeks old, I was ill one
morning, and did not appear at breakfast.
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