awfully all the time she was devouring it. Meanwhile father stood aside and seemed so pleased that he did not know what to do with himself.
When she had finished the bird, brother and I had the wings and tail to play with, and we pretended to be mother, and growled like little wild beasts. Then mother would sit down and wash her face. As soon as she had done so she jumped merrily off the cushion and slapped father, and then the fun began.
One day father came into the room looking much more like a lion than ever, and he had something in his mouth.
He was growling, too, and I think mother was half afraid of him. But he came right up to the spot where brother and I were playing with our ruby, and placed a strange and weird-looking creature down right in front of us.
We had never seen such a little animal before. It wasn’t a bird, for it had no wings, only feet, and fur as soft as mother’s, but dark in colour. It lay on its side, and, dreadfully frightened though we were, brother and I both put up our backs and spat and growled most bravely.
The little vision in fur, which I now know to have been a harmless mouse, lay on its side quite paralysed with fear, but father stretched out his gloved hand and pushed it. Then it jumped up and ran away.
Oh, what a fright brother and I got when we saw that the wild mouse was alive! And how brave we thought father was when he sprang after it and brought it back.
But we soon regained our courage, and father and mother stood aside to see us play with it. Whenever it escaped they brought it back.
At last the poor little morsel, all wet and bedraggled, stood up on its hind legs in front of father, and wagged its two wee naked hands in front of its nose. Mother told me afterwards what it was saying.
“Oh, kill me please,” it pleaded. “Kill me quick and put me out of pain.”
Chapter Four
“You Must have a Name, My Lovely Flower.”
Hitherto, continued Shireen, shifting her position on the footstool to one of greater comfort, hitherto, my children, the life of brother and myself had been all indoors. We knew of no other world than that bounded by the four walls of the room around us, and it never occurred to me to wonder where our lion-like father obtained the birds which he never forgot to bring mother daily.
À propos of Shireen’s father bringing the mother pussy the birds, I have a little anecdote to tell that is not without its humorous side. Some years ago I possessed a very large and handsome half-Persian white Tom, whom the children called Jujube. This cat, being allowed to roam the world at the freedom of his own will, formed an attachment with a neighbour’s lady-cat, and married her. I was not invited to the marriage, so do not know when it took place, nor what speeches were made at the wedding-breakfast. However, in course of time, Mrs G – ’s cat was about to have kittens, and, not having any knowledge of how cats should be treated under such circumstances, she rather cruelly turned her out of doors. It happened at this time that Mrs G – had also twenty-one young chickens. And now they began to disappear at the rate of one every day, and so on for nineteen days. Her cat had also disappeared, and could not be found. But on the nineteenth day the mystery was explained, for walking in my orchard I happened to look between two tall hedges, and there, on a nest of dry leaves was the mother cat, with five beautiful kittens. Poor Ju had brought her here, had made the warm nest for her, and gone every day back to her old home and brought her a chicken. Ju had evidently reasoned that although Mrs G – had turned her out, she ought to be well-fed at the expense of her mistress. Hence, the robbery of the chicken-roost.
He did not come in through the curtained doorway that led out into the orangery with its fountains and its flowers, but leapt down from a window that was too high for us to reach.
One day, the door leading into the garden was left open, and mother, discovering this, determined to take us out.
If I should live to be as old as Chammy yonder, my children, I shall never forget that morning. We followed mother timidly, fearfully, and on rather shaky legs I must admit, for we were not yet very strong.
And every time a leaf fell, or went fluttering past us we started and trembled, nay, I am not sure we did not even start at our own shadows in the strong sunlight.
We gathered a little more confidence at last, but everything was so new and so strange and so unaccountable that it seemed like walking in a dream. I looked up for a moment at the sun, but quickly withdrew my gaze; then all was suddenly dark around me. I thought the earth had opened and swallowed us all up, and mewed in terror. But things soon became light once more, mother licked the top of my head, and on we went, now with more confidence.
There were birds singing here, and flitting to and fro through the spray of the gurgling fountains; light and colour and beauty were everywhere. Then the air was strong and fresh and balmy, and, oh, so delightfully warm, that we soon felt perfectly at home, and bold enough even to chase the fluttering leaves.
But for all this we would not venture far away from mother. And when at last we were tired of romping, and our beautiful mother went trotting back into the room again, we were all glad enough to follow. What with the exceeding brightness of the sun out of doors, we could not see anything at all when we went inside. Night seemed to have descended and enveloped us all in its darksome folds. But mother, wiser than we, led us back to our cushion, and no sooner did we lie down than we fell into a sound and dreamless slumber.
So ended our first outing.
It became a regular thing now, however, this walk in the garden, and seeing we enjoyed it so much, our mistress and queen, whom the tall, black, red-eyed savage called Beebee, took us out to revel among the sunshine and the flowers every day; and every day brother and I seemed to grow stronger and bigger.
I began to love Beebee very much too, and it was she who named me Shireen.
Yes, Warlock, it is a strange name, and so would yours appear to the people of Persia.
But one day, Beebee took me on her lap, and told me why she had named me Shireen. “You must have a name, my lovely flower,” she said, in her sweet child voice, “so it shall be Shireen. For know ye, that this was the name held by the wife of a very great king and lord of Persia, who lived ages and ages and ages ago, when this lovely land was even greater than it is now.”
I fear, my children, that I did not pay very much heed to all Beebee was telling me, for I was very much taken up with a string of pearls and rubies that she wore around her beautiful arm just above the elbow, and all the time she was speaking, I was chewing at it. But mother listened and told me the tale of the Queen Shireen over again when we were all by ourselves.
“I remember it,” said a voice which wasn’t Warlock’s. It was a voice that seemed to come from the clouds, and a strange, sepulchral tone it had. “Yes, I remember it. Just wait till I get down the chimney.”
To say that every member of that circle of old friends round the fire was startled would be a poor way of describing the general consternation.
A strange voice coming down the chimney! A weird, sepulchral voice! And the owner of that voice was going to follow it. He, she, or it, was coming down the chimney!
Would the lights burn blue when the ghostly thing – the dread apparition appeared?
“Eh? eh?” cried the starling. “What is it? What is it? Tse, tse, tse!” (These were favourite expressions of my starling.)
Tabby’s hair stood on end from tail to crown. Vee-Vee’s hair would have
