the fact that his horses were tired, he
was proceeding at little more than a snail's pace.

I think my grandmother was rather relieved than otherwise. She had been
very fond of the cat at one time, but its recent conduct had alienated
her affection. We children buried it in the garden under the mulberry
tree, but the old lady insisted that there should be no tombstone, not
even a mound raised. So it lies there, unhonoured, in a drunkard's
grave.

I also told him of another cat our family had once possessed. She was
the most motherly thing I have ever known. She was never happy without a
family. Indeed, I cannot remember her when she hadn't a family in one
stage or another. She was not very particular what sort of a family it
was. If she could not have kittens, then she would content herself with
puppies or rats. Anything that she could wash and feed seemed to satisfy
her. I believe she would have brought up chickens if we had entrusted
them to her.

All her brains must have run to motherliness, for she hadn't much sense.
She could never tell the difference between her own children and other
people's. She thought everything young was a kitten. We once mixed up a
spaniel puppy that had lost its own mother among her progeny. I shall
never forget her astonishment when it first barked. She boxed both its
ears, and then sat looking down at it with an expression of indignant
sorrow that was really touching.

"You're going to be a credit to your mother," she seemed to be saying
"you're a nice comfort to any one's old age, you are, making a row like
that. And look at your ears flopping all over your face. I don't know
where you pick up such ways."

He was a good little dog. He did try to mew, and he did try to wash his
face with his paw, and to keep his tail still, but his success was not
commensurate with his will. I do not know which was the sadder to
reflect upon, his efforts to become a creditable kitten, or his foster-
mother's despair of ever making him one.

Later on we gave her a baby squirrel to rear. She was nursing a family
of her own at the time, but she adopted him with enthusiasm, under the
impression that he was another kitten, though she could not quite make
out how she had come to overlook him. He soon became her prime
favourite. She liked his colour, and took a mother's pride in his tail.
What troubled her was that it would cock up over his head. She would
hold it down with one paw,