ectacle that met him banished immediately, for the moment, all
preoccupations personal.

On one of the lower of the flowering branches, but high enough to be
beyond arm's reach, or even cane's reach, in the crook of the bough,
crouched, making ready to spring, a big black cat, the tip of his tail
twitching with contained excitement, his yellow eyes fixed murderously
on the branch next above: where, in the agitation of supreme distress,
a chaffinch, a little grey hen-chaffinch, was hopping backwards and
forwards, sometimes rising a few inches into the air, but always
returning to the branch, and uttering a succession of terrified,
agonised, despairing tweets.

It was a hateful thing to see. It was the genius of cruelty made
manifest in a single intense tableau.

"Why does n't the bird fly away?" Susanna painfully questioned. She
was pale, and her lips were strained; she looked sick and hopeless.
"Is she fascinated? The cat will surely get her."

"No--her nest must be somewhere there--she is guarding her nestlings,"
said Anthony.

Then he raised his stick menacingly, and, in tones of stern command,
addressed the cat.

"Patapouf! I am ashamed of you. Come down--come down from there--come
down directly."

And he emphasised each staccato summons by a sharp rap of his stick
against the highest point of the tree that he could reach.

The cat turned his head, to look--and the spell was broken. His
attitude relaxed. Anthony put his hands on the tree, and made as if to
climb it. The cat gave a resigned shrug of the shoulders, and came
scrambling down. Next instant, (if you please), unabashed, tail erect,
back arched, he was rubbing his whiskers against Anthony's legs,
circling round them, s-shaping himself between them, and purring
conciliations, as who should say, "There, there. Though you _have_
spoiled sport, I won't quarrel with you, and I _am_ delighted to see
you." The bird, twittering, flew up, and disappeared in the higher
foliage.

Susanna breathed a deep sigh of relief.

"Oh, thank you, thank you," she said, with fervour. Then she shook her
finger, and frowned, at Patapouf. "Oh, you bad cat! You cruel cat!"
And raising eyes dark with reproach to Anthony's, "Yet he seems to be a
friend of yours?" she wondered. (By this time, of course, she must
have realised who he was. Very likely she had her emotions.)

Anthony, the bird in safety, could tingle anew to the deep notes of her
voice, could e