Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/280

 250 the village parsonage, thin, half-starved, wretched, the shadow of her old defiant self. Carried back once more to town, everything was done that might content her restless little heart. The housekeeper fed her with dainties, and even ministered delicately to her predatory tastes by leaving the cupboard door open, as if by accident, hoping to tempt her failing appetite with the sweetness of stolen cream.

It was all in vain. The familiar walls called to her from afar, and, obeying an instinct too strong for rejection, she journeyed wearily back, to die, if need be, in her kittenhood's home.

Then the wise old servant, feeling that only radical measures could cure so obstinate a disease, devised a plan which shows how well she understood the nature of a cat. There was a little pond at the foot of the curé's country garden, where, erstwhile, Pussy had been wont to lie dreaming the summer days away. Going herself to the village, the woman directed one of the farmer boys—an active and mischievous lad—to catch her truant pet, and dip her three times deep under the cold and hateful water. It was enough. Felis amat pisces, sed non vult tingere plantam. And to be thus scandalously ill-treated in the spot she loved best, where she had lorded it over the neighbouring