er face turned away from the fire.

"You will have light enough to see the cats by," she said, "without
having too much light for _me_. Firelight does not give me the acute
pain which I suffer when daylight falls on my face--I feel a certain
inconvenience from it, and nothing more."

She touched the strings of her instrument--the ancient harp, as she had
said, of the pictured St. Cecilia; or, rather, as I thought, the ancient
harp of the Welsh bards. The sound was at first unpleasantly high in
pitch, to my untutored ear. At the opening notes of the melody--a slow,
wailing, dirgelike air--the cats rose, and circled round their mistress,
marching to the tune. Now they followed each other singly; now, at a
change in the melody, they walked two and two; and, now again, they
separated into divisions of three each, and circled round the chair in
opposite directions. The music quickened, and the cats quickened their
pace with it. Faster and faster the notes rang out, and faster and
faster in the ruddy firelight, the cats, like living shadows, whirled
round the still black figure in the chair, with the ancient harp on its
knee. Anything so weird, wild, and ghostlike I never imagined before
even in a dream! The music changed, and the whirling cats began to leap.
One perched itself at a bound on the pedestal of the harp. Four sprung
up together, and assumed their places, two on each of her shoulders.
The last and smallest of the cats took the last leap, and lighted on
her head! There the six creatures kept their positions, motionless as
statues! Nothing moved but the wan, white hands over the harp-strings;
no sound but the sound of the music stirred in the room. Once more the
melody changed. In an instant the six cats were on the floor again,
seated round the chair as I had seen them on their first entrance; the
harp was laid aside; and the faint, sweet voice said quietly, "I am soon
tired--I must leave my cats to conclude their performances tomorrow."

She rose, and approached the bedside.

"I leave you to see the sunset through your window," she said. "From
the coming of the darkness to the coming of breakfast-time, you must
not count on my services--I am taking my rest. I have no choice but to
remain in bed (sleeping when I can) for twelve hours or more. The long
repose seems to keep my life in me. Have I and my cats surprised you
very much? Am I a witch; and are they my familiar spirits? Remember how
few amusements I have,