Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/239

 Rh among the bottles on a toilet-table, smelling wistfully at the stoppers. No doubt she would have used the powder puff, had she been permitted.

"Don Pierrot, who came from Havannah, required a hothouse temperature, and in this he was always gratified. The house was surrounded, however, by spacious gardens, over the walls of which cats could easily climb. Pierrot would often take advantage of an open door, and go bird-hunting at dusk through the wet grass and flower beds. It even happened, now and then, that his cries for readmission were not heard, and he was compelled to spend the night out of doors. In this way he caught a heavy cold which rapidly developed into phthisis. Before the end of the year he had wasted to a skeleton, and his fur, once so silky, was of a dull harsh white. His eyes looked large in his shrunken face, the pink of his little nose had faded, and he dragged himself slowly along the sunny side of the wall, looking with melancholy listlessness at the yellow leaves as they danced and whirled in the wind. We did all in our power to save him. The doctor felt his pulse, sounded his lungs, and ordered him ass's milk. He drank it with ready obedience out of his own especial saucer. For hours he lay upon my knee like the shadow of a sphinx. I felt his spine under my finger tips like the beads of a rosary, and he tried to respond to my caresses with a feeble