resort of foreigners of somewhat doubtful character, of Bohemian artists
and musicians.

As I sat gazing into the fire many pictures of those old days rose before
me. I saw our large drawing-room with its old-fashioned furniture,
handsome, often beautiful, but ill-kept; its sombre hangings and fine
pictures. I recalled a typical scene there with a large fire burning
cheerily in the big grate, relieving the gloom of a late winter afternoon
with the bright flickering of its flames. Ensconced in a roomy arm-chair,
our father is seated by the fire in a skullcap and list slippers, with his
favourite cat perched on his knee. Opposite him sit two ladies, the elder
of whom--a quaint, nice-looking old lady, dressed neatly in black, but
whose innate eccentricity succeeded in imparting something odd to the
simplest and quietest of attires--is leaning eagerly forward, pouring
forth a long tale of woe into my father's sympathetic ear. She is
denouncing the London roughs, landlords, and police, who, apparently, are
all in league to ruin her and turn her cats astray upon an unkind world.
The brutality of the English poor, who consider their duty towards the
feline race fully performed when they have fed them, and who pay no more
attention to their morals and higher feelings than if they were stocks and
stones, arouses her ire; sympathy is what she needs, sympathy to help her
to face the world and continue her crusade against cruelty. She says all
this in a scattered and disconnected style, jumping from one point to
another, turning occasionally to her friend for support or confirmation.
This friend is a meek, subdued-looking person of uncertain age, somewhat
washed-out and bedraggled in appearance. Her attire is nondescript, and
seems to consist of oddments bought solely because they were cheap and
bearing no relation whatever one to the other. Mrs. Smuts, growing more
and more absorbed in the course of her harangue on the great cat question,
states that she believes in marrying cats young in life and looking