night before, and begged one. It was a little black fellow, cold and
half dead; but the Pretty Lady was beside herself with joy when I
bestowed it upon her. For two days she would not leave the box where I
established their headquarters, and for months she refused to wean it,
or to look upon it as less than absolutely perfect. I may say that the
Pretty Lady lived to be nine years old, and had, during that brief
period, no less than ninety-three kittens, besides two adopted ones; but
never did she bestow upon any of her own offspring that wealth of pride
and affection which was showered upon black Bobbie.

When the first child of her adoption was two weeks old, I was ill one
morning, and did not appear at breakfast. It had always been her custom
to wait for my coming down in the morning, evidently considering it a
not unimportant part of her duty to see me well launched for the day.
Usually she sat at the head of the stairs and waited patiently until she
heard me moving about. Sometimes she came in and sat on a chair at the
head of my bed, or gently touched my face with her nose or paw. Although
she knew she was at liberty to sleep in my room, she seldom did so,
except when she had an infant on her hands. At first she invariably kept
him in a lower drawer of my bureau. When he was large enough, she
removed him to the foot of the bed, where for a week or two her maternal
solicitude and sociable habits of nocturnal conversation with her
progeny interfered seriously with my night's rest. If my friends used to
notice a wild and haggard appearance of unrest about me at certain
periods of the year, the reason stands here confessed.

I was ill when black Bobbie was two weeks old. The Pretty Lady waited
until breakfast was over, and as I did not appear, came up and jumped on
the bed, where she manifested some curiosity as to my lack of active
interest in the world's affairs.