them were on herback at one time--wee, brown-eyed, laughing Lovat S--; young Ernie, boldand bright and free; and little winsome Winnie C--.
"To be sure they often fell off, but there was where the fun and theglee lay, especially when Jeannie sometimes bent her nose to the groundand let them all tumble on the sand in a heap. And that, you know, wasJeannie's joke, and one that she was never tired of repeating.
"In summer Jeannie shone, positively shone, all over like a race-horseor a boatman beetle, and then I can tell you it was no easy matter forher playmates to stick on her back at all. She was particularlypartial, as you have seen, to the society of human beings, andbrightened up wonderfully as soon as a friend appeared on the scene, butI think when alone she was rather of a contemplative turn of mind.There was a rookery not far from Jeannie's abode, and at this she nevertired gazing.
"`Well,' said Jeannie to me one day, `they do be funny creatures, thoserooks. I don't think I should like to live up there, Ar--thur. Andthey're always a-fighting too, just like my boarders be, and never athing do they say from morning till night but caw, caw, caw. Now ifthey could only make a few remarks like this, Haw, hee! Haw, hee! Hawhee!'
"`Oh! don't, pray don't, Jeannie,' I cried, with my fingers in my ears.
"And now, then, what do you think made Jeannie such a bright, loving,and intelligent animal? Why, kindness and good treatment.
"Dear old Jeannie, I may never gaze upon her classic countenance again,but I shall not forget her. In my mind's eye I see her even now, as Ilast beheld her. The sun had just gone down, behind a calm and silentsea; scarcely do the waves speak as they break in ripples on the sand,they do but whisper. And the clouds are tipped with gold and crimson,and far away in the offing is a ship, a single ship, and these are allthe signs of life there are about, save Jeannie on the beach. Alone.
"I wonder what she was thinking about."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
AN EVENING SPENT AT OUR OWN FIRESIDE.
"Well, puss," says Man, "and what can you To benefit the public do?"
Gay.
"Draw round your chair," said I to Frank; "and now for a comfortable,quiet evening."
Frank and I had been away all the afternoon, on one of our long rambles.Very pleasantly shone the morning sun, that had wooed us away; theground was frozen hard as iron, there wasn't a cloud in himmel's blue,nor a breath of wind from one direction or another. But towards eveninga change had come suddenly over the spirit of the day's dream, whichfound my friend and I still a goodly two hours' stride from home. Heavygrey clouds had come trooping up from the north-east, borne along on thefierce fleet wings of a ten-knot breeze; then the snow had come on, suchsnow as seldom falls in "bonnie Berks;" and soon we were surrounded byone of the wildest wintry nights ever I remember. Talking wasimpossible; we could but clutch our sticks and boldly hurry onwards,while the wind sighed and roared through the telegraph-wires, and thesnow sifted angrily through the leafless hedgerows. It was a night thatnone save a healthy man could have faced.
Ah! but didn't the light from the cosy, red-curtained window, streamingover our own snow-silvered lawn, amply reward us at last; while the nicedinner quite put the climax on our happiness.
"Now for your story," said Frank. "Now for my story," I replied; "Iwill call it--"
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THE FIRESIDE FAVOURITE: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
"The lines of some cats fall in pleasant places. Mine have. I'm thefireside favourite, I'm the parlour pet. I'm the _beau ideal_, so mymistress says, of what every decent, respectable, well-trained cat oughtto be--and I looked in the glass and found it so. But pray don't thinkthat I am vain because I happen to know the usages of polite society,and the uses and abuses of the looking-glass. No cat, in my opinion,with any claim to the dignity of lady-puss, would think of washing herface unless in front of a plate-glass mirror. But I will not soonforget the day I first knew what a looking-glass meant. I was then onlya silly little mite of a kitten, of a highly inquiring turn of mind.Well, one evening my young mistress was going to a ball, and before shewent she spent about three hours in her dressing-room, doing something,and then she came down to the parlour, looking more like an angel thanever I had seen her. Oh, how she was dressed, to be sure. And she hadlittle bunches of flowers stuck on all over her dress, and I wanted toplay at `mousies' with them; but she wouldn't wait, she just kissed meand bade me be a good kitten and not run up the curtains, and then offshe went. Yes; I meant to be an awfully good little kitten--but firstand foremost I meant to see the interior of that mysterious room. Bygood luck the door was ajar, so in I popped at once, and made direct forthe table. Such a display of beautiful things I had never seen before.I didn't know what they all meant then, but I do now, for, mind you, Iwill soon be twenty years of age. But I got great fun on that table. Itried the gold rings on my nose, and the earrings on my toes, and Iknocked off the lid of a powder-box, and scattered the crimson contentsall abroad. Then I had a fearful battle with a puff which I unearthedfrom another box. During the fight a bottle of ylang-ylang went down.I didn't care a bit. Crash went a bottle of flower-water next. Iregarded it not. I fought the puff till it took refuge on the floor.Then I paused, wondering what I should do next, when behold! right infront of me and looking through a square of glass, and apparentlywondering what _it_ should do next, was the ugliest little wretch of akitten ever you saw in your life--I marched up to it as brave as abutton, and it had the audacity to come and meet me.
"`You ugly, deformed little thing,' I cried, `what do you want in mylady's room?'
"`The same to you,' it seemed to say, `and many of them.'
"`For two pins,' I continued, `I would scratch your nasty little eyesout--yah--fuss-s!'
"`Yah--fuss-s!' replied the foe, lifting its left paw as I lifted myright.
"This was too much. I crept round the corner to give her a cuff. Shewasn't there! I came back, and there she was as brazen as ever. Itried this game on several times, but couldn't catch her. `Then,' saysI, `you'll catch it where you stand, in spite of the pane of glass!'
"I struck straight from the shoulder, and with a will too. Down wentthe glass, and I found I had been fighting all the time with my ownreflection. Funny, wasn't it?
"When mistress came home there was such a row. But she was sensible,and didn't beat me. She took me upstairs, and showed me what I haddone, and looked so vexed that I was sorry too. `It is my own fault,though,' she said; `I ought to have shut the door.'
"She presented me with a looking-glass soon after this, and it is quitesurprising how my opinion of that strange kitten in the mirror alteredafter that. I thought now I had never seen such a lovely thing, and Iwas never tired looking at it. No more I had. But first impressions_are_ so erroneous, you know.
"My dear mother is dead and gone years ago--of course, considering myage, you won't marvel at that; and my young mistress is married long,long ago, and has a grown family, who are all as kind as kind can be toold Tom, as they facetiously call me. And so they were to my mother,who, I may tell you, was only three days in her last illness, and gaveup the ghost on a file of old newspapers (than which nothing makes abetter bed), and is buried under the old pear-tree.
"Dear me, how often I have wondered how other poor cats who have neitherkind master nor mistress manage to live. But, the poor creatures, theyare so ignorant--badly-bred, you know. Why, only the other day theyoung master brought home a poor little cat he had found starving in thestreet. Well, I never in all my life saw such an ill-mannered, rudelittle wretch, for no sooner had it got itself stuffed with the bestfare in the house, than it made a deliberate attempt to steal thecanary. There was gratitude for you! Now, mind, I don't say that _I_shouldn't like to eat the canary, but I never have taken our own birds--no--always the neighbours'. I did, just once, fly at our own canary'scage when I was quite a wee cat, but I didn't know any better. And whatdo you think my mistress did?
Why, she took the bird out of the cageand popped me in; and there I was, all day long, a prisoner, withnothing for dinner but seeds and water, and the canary flying about theroom and doing what it liked, even helping itself to my milk. I neverforgot that.
"Some cats, you know, are arrant thieves, and I don't wonder at it, theway they are kicked and cuffed about, put out all night, and neveroffered food or water. I would steal myself if I were used like that,wouldn't you, madam? But I have my two meals a day, regularly; and Ihave a nice double saucer, which stands beside my mirror, and one endcontains nice milk and the other clean water, and I don't know which Ilike the best. When I am downright thirsty, the water