Page:The fireside sphinx.djvu/45

 Rh and, surfeited with cajolery, she sinks unconcernedly to sleep, until disturbed by the rude antics of the young Commodus.

"It was then that the host's son bethought him of his own favourite animal, which had offended somehow, and had been forbidden the banquet.—'I mean to shut you in the oven a while, little soft, white thing!' he had said, catching sight, as he passed an open doorway, of the great fire in the kitchen, itself festally adorned, where the feast was preparing; and had so finally forgotten it. And it was with a really natural laugh, for once, that, on opening the oven, he caught sight of the animal's grotesque appearance, as it lay there, half-burnt, just within the red-hot iron door."

That light, cruel, natural laugh echoes through the centuries, and follows the cat along her pathway of pain. Mr. Pater, fretted to pity by his own tale, eliminated from later editions of "Marius" the heart-rending episode he could so ill endure. Would that it were as easy to banish from Pussy's history the gloomy records of sorcery and persecution.