Page:Fantastics and other Fancies.djvu/49

 pipe;—nom d'un petit bonhomme!"—he might have been a little more careful! . . . An hour later the red kitten was vainly seeking its speckled companion—all ears and eyes. It uttered strange little cries, and vainly waited for the customary reply. Then it commenced to look everywhere—upstairs, downstairs, on the galleries, in the corners, among the shrubbery, never supposing in its innocent mind that a little speckled body was lying far away upon a heap of garbage and ashes. Then it became very silent; purring when offered food, but eating nothing. . . . At last a sudden thought seemed to strike it. It had never seen the great world which rumbled beyond the archway of the old courtyard; perhaps its little sister had wandered out there. So it would go and seek her. For the first time it wandered beyond the archway and saw the big world it had never seen before—miles of houses and myriads of people and great cotton-floats thundering by, and great wicked dogs which murder kittens. But the little red one crept along beside the houses in the narrow strip of shadow, sometimes trembling when the big wagons rolled past, and sometimes hiding in doorways when