Light, as if they had sunk into the sea.


V.

A deep peace fell upon us when they went, and it must have been at this
most receptive moment, when all our sympathies were adjusted in a mood of
hospitable expectation, that Jim appeared.

Jim was, and still is, and I hope will long be, a cat; but unless one has
lived at Kittery Point, and realized, from observation and experience,
what a leading part cats may play in society, one cannot feel the full
import of this fact. Not only has every house in Kittery its cat, but
every house seems to have its half-dozen cats, large, little, old, and
young; of divers colors, tending mostly to a dark tortoise-shell. With a
whole ocean inviting to the tragic rite, I do not believe there is ever a
kitten drowned in Kittery; the illimitable sea rather employs itself in
supplying the fish to which "no cat's averse," but which the cats of
Kittery demand to have cooked. They do not like raw fish; they say it
plainly, and they prefer to have the bones taken out for them, though
they do not insist upon that point.

At least, Jim never did so from the time when he first scented the odor
of delicate young mackerel in the evening air about our kitchen, and
dropped in upon the maids there with a fine casual effect of being merely
out for a walk, and feeling it a neighborly thing to call. He had on a
silver collar, engraved with his name and surname, which offered itself
for introduction like a visiting-card. He was too polite to ask himself
to the table at once, but after he had been welcomed to the family
circle, he formed the habit of finding himself with us at breakfast and