cool of the evening has come.




THE ONE-EYED CAT


"There's Peggy with that horrid cat again--the one-eyed cat from over the
fence." I looked out as I heard the ejaculation, and there in truth coming
down the garden path was Peggy bearing affectionately in her arms the
one-eyed cat from over the fence. Peggy likes the animal in spite of its
one eye. I am not sure that she does not like it all the more because of
its one eye. I think she has an idea that if she nurses the cat it forgets
that it has only one eye and recovers its happiness. She has a passion for
all four-legged creatures. I have seen her spend a whole day picking
handfuls of grass in the orchard and running with them to the donkey or the
horse standing patiently in the neighbour's paddock, and when she hasn't
animals to play with she will put a horseshoe on each hand and each foot,
and then you will hear from above the plod-plod-plod of a horse going its
daily round. But while she has a comprehensive affection for all
four-legged things, her most fervent love is reserved for the halt and the
blind.

It is only among children that we find the quality of charity sufficiently
strong to forgive deformity. The natural instinct is to turn away from any
physical imperfection. It is the instinct of the race for the preservation
of its forms. We call these forms beauty and the departure from them
ugliness, and it is from "beauty's rose," as Shakespeare says, that "we
desire increase." If you shudder at the touch of a withered hand or at the