The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales | Page 9

cat wouldn't like it."
That was a wonderful evening. Everything seemed as suddenly changed as if a fairy had touched them with her wand. Not only was the kitchen cat actually there in the nursery, drinking milk and eating toast, but there was a still stranger alteration. This father was quite different to the one she had known in the dining-room downstairs, who was always reading and had no time to talk. His very face had altered, for instead of looking grave and faraway it was full of smiles and interest. And how well he understood about the kitchen cat! When her bed-time came he seemed quite sorry to go away, and his last words were:
"Remember, Nurse, Miss Ruth is to have the cat here whenever she likes and as long as she likes."
It was all so strange that Ruth woke up the next morning with a feeling that she had had a pleasant dream. The kitchen cat and the new father would both vanish with daylight; they were "fancies", as Nurse called them, and not real things at all. But as the days passed and she grew strong enough to go downstairs as usual, it was delightful to find that this was not the case. The new father was there still. The cat was allowed to make a third in the party, and soon learned to take its place with dignity and composure. But though thus honoured, it no longer received all Ruth's confidences. She had found a better friend. Her difficulties, her questions, her news were all saved up for the evening to tell her father. It was the best bit in the whole day.
On one of these occasions they were all three sitting happily together, and Ruth had just put a new brass collar which her father had bought round the cat's neck.
"I don't want to go to Summerford," she said suddenly. "I'd much rather stay here with you."
"And the cat," added Mr Lorimer as he kissed her. "Well, you must come back soon and take care of us both, you know."
"You'll be kind to it when I'm gone, won't you?" said Ruth. "Because, you know, I don't think the servants understand cats. They're rather sharp to it."
"It shall have dinner with me every night," said Mr Lorimer.
In this way the kitchen cat was raised from a lowly station to great honour, and its life henceforth was one of peace and freedom. It went where it would, no one questioned its right of entrance to the nursery or dared to slight it in any way. In spite, however, of choice meals and luxury it never grew fat, and never, except in Ruth's eyes, became pretty. It also kept to many of its old habits, preferring liberty and the chimney-pots at night to the softly-lined basket prepared for its repose.
But with all its faults Ruth loved it faithfully as long as it lived, for in her own mind she felt that she owed it a great deal.
She remembered that evening when, a lonely little child, she had called it her "best friend." Perhaps she would not have discovered so soon that she had a better friend still, without the kitchen cat.
CHAPTER THREE.
"Who saw Sarah last?"
It was Hester who had seen her last when she had said good-bye to a friend at the hall door. That was at eleven o'clock in the morning; now it was one o'clock in the afternoon, and there was no Sarah to be found anywhere. Not in the nursery, not in any of the bedrooms, not upstairs, not downstairs; every hole and corner and crevice much too small to hide Sarah was thoroughly searched. Her name was called in the fondest tones by every member of the family from father and mother down to little Diana, and by all the servants, but there was no answer. There could be no doubt about it--Sarah was lost!
Little Diana was heart-broken. It was dreadful to think of Sarah out alone in the noisy London streets, where she knew no one and no one would know her, where she would soon get confused and lose her way, and where all the houses looked so much alike that she would never, never be able to find her home again. Perhaps even some wicked person might steal Sarah, or she might be run over by a carriage, or bitten by a dog, or--there were no end of misfortunes which might happen to her, for it made it all the more sad to remember that Sarah could not speak.
Who was Sarah?
Perhaps you may have been thinking that she was a little girl. Nothing of the kind. She was the dearest little dog in the world, with a yellow and white silky coat, and a very turned-up nose, and goggling, affectionate dark eyes.