iendship on which to draw for counsel
and sympathy. What wonder, then, that the Angora kitten, deprived of
her Laura, emptied her silky little head of some of its worries,
divining that I was older and graver and perhaps would find her lost
ball and give it to her to play with again.

"There's no telling when Laura will be here!" she exclaimed
despairingly. "When there is any duty within a thousand miles she
stays to perform it. Mrs. Beckett has poisoned herself with mercury
and Laura thinks she ought to go and nurse her for a day or two--as if
Mrs. Beckett hadn't six maids and twenty thousand a year to spend in
nurses! Laura can't bear Tom, his incurable levity gets on her nerves,
and why she wants to martyr herself by staying in the house with him
when I'd be only too glad to go, passes my comprehension!"

(I can't explain it, but at this juncture I seemed to have visions of
Laura flirting with the Beckett during the Kitten's absence.)

"Sometimes," she continued, rippling along as if natural speech had
been denied her for hours, "sometimes I wish I hadn't selected such a
superior being for a bosom friend, and then again I despise myself for
harboring such a mean feeling. I'm forever trying to climb, and Laura
is continually trying to drag me to her level, but I suppose I don't
belong there, and that's the reason I keep slipping off and sliding
down. At this minute, if she'd let me be the groveling little
earthworm I am by nature, I could marry Tom Beckett and be as happy as
the day is long."

"What is the matter?" I asked sympathetically, though rather ashamed
to drop a plummet into so shallow a brook. "If you love his mother so
dearly, and love him too, and are sure of his affection, why don't you
marry him? Isn't he suitable?"

"Oh, yes; he's almost too suitable; that's one of the lions in the
way. His family is good, he is as handsome as Apollo, and he has a
much larger income than mine, but you see there's another man."

"Another man! You didn't mention him yesterday."

"Didn't I? How funny! But after all it was our very first interview,
and even silly I have my reserves."

"Do you love them both equally?" I asked, trying to keep the note of
sarcasm out of my voice.

"Certainly not. I care nothing about anybody but Tom Beckett, but
Laura says that such a marriage will simply mean a life of
self-indulgent luxury, idleness, and pleasure. She says marriage is
something loftier and nobler than pleasing one