such a fate,"
returned Dominick, "when she let us all go so readily, on the
understanding that we should give father no rest until we had got him to
give up business, quit Java for ever, and return home."

"Dear old mother!" said Pauline, "I wish--oh! I wish so much that we
had not left her, even though it was to be for only a few months. She
must be _so_ lonely, with no one to talk to--"

"You forget Pina."

"Forget--what?"

"The cat," returned Otto, unable to repress a smile, which rose in spite
of the ready tear that dimmed his eye at the mere mention of his mother.
"You know the cat is her great resource--a sort of safety-valve.
Sometimes, when I've been listening to her, lying on the rug at her feet
half asleep, I've heard her talk to that cat as if it really was a human
being, and tell it all about her little affairs and daily troubles and
worries in quite a confidential tone. I've taken it into my head that
that's mother's way of thinking aloud--she thinks at the cat, for
company: and to do the brute justice, it does its best to accommodate
her. I've seen it sit and stare at her by the half-hour at a time, and
give a little purr or a meaiow now and then as if it wanted to speak.
I'm quite sure it thinks, and wonders no doubt what idle, useless work
it is to click knitting-needles together by the hour."

"Dear me, Otto," said Pauline, with a laugh, "I had no idea that you
could think so much about anything."

"Think!" exclaimed the boy, indignantly; "d'you suppose that it's only
stern-browed, long-legged fellows like Dom there who can think? Why, I
think, and think, sometimes, to such an extent that I nearly think
myself inside out! But, Pina, you don't know half as much about
motherkin as I do, for when _you_ are with her she usually forgets
_herself_, I can see, and talks only about the things that interest
_you_; whereas, when there's nobody present but _me_, she counts me for
nothing, and lets me do pretty much what I like--because no doubt she
thinks I'll do that whether she lets me or not--but she's wrong, for I
love her far more than she thinks; and then it's when I'm quiet and she
forgets me, I fancy, or thinks I'm asleep, that she comes out strong at
the cat."

"Darling mother!" said Pauline, musingly. "I can see her now, in my
mind, with her neat black cap and smooth braided hair, and gold
spectacles, as plain as if she were sitting before me."

"I'm sorry to destroy the vision, Pina, o