-bordered terrace; and
here the village ends.

Not so my sketch: for I have purposely left it to the last to
make mention of the great central idea round which all the rest
is gathered, and which, doubtless, formed the germ of the whole
oddly-conceived, but most admirably-executed plan. This is the
"Cat's Monument" of which Nannette had made mention, and which is
a structure so original and imposing that it deserves special and
minute description.

About midway the terrace, and conspicuous from its size and
height, rises a mound of earth shaped into the semblance of
an urn or vase, crusted thickly with bits of rock, moss, and
pebbles, and overgrown with a tangle of tiny vines. Surmounting
this picturesque pedestal is an obelisk of black-veined marble on
a granite base, the whole rising some seven feet from the ground.
On the polished surface of this memorial pillar is inscribed, in
large black capitals, the following classic and touching tribute
to the venerable departed who sleeps in peace below:

IN MEMORIAM
TOMMY
FELINI GENERIS
OPTIMUS.
DECESSIT A VITA
MENSE NOVEMBRIS
ANNO AETATIS 19.

* * * * *

_Quid me ploras? Nonne decessi gravis senectute? Nonne vivo
amicorum ardentium memoria?_

* * * * *

On the reverse side of the column appears an inscription even
more pathetic and poetic, to yet another departed favorite, who
seems, not like Tommy to have been gathered to his fathers ripe
in years and honors but to have been cut down in the bloom
of youth by some untimely and tragic fate. He is all the more
felin'ly lamented:

HIC JACET
PUSSY
SUI GENERIS
PULCHERRIMUS.
OCCISUS EST
MENSE APRILIS
AETAT. 9.

* * * * *

"_Vixi, et quum dederat cursum fortuna, peregi. Felix! heu nimium
felix! si litora ista nunquam tetigissem!_"

* * * * *

Thanks to certain by no means homoeopathic doses of the Latin
grammar in my early years, I was able to gather the meaning of
these elegiac effusions, and when the last stanza embodying poor
Pussy's posthumous wail was discovered to be none other than the
despairing death-cry of the "infelix Dido" as immortalized by
Virgil--the one step from the sublime to the ridiculous seemed to
have been passed.

I looked at Nannette, and Nannette looked at me, and we burst
into silent but irrepres