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"Oh, the beautiful cat! the pretty cat! that cat hasn't his equal!" and he caressed it in the most perfidious fashion. "Truly?" said Madame de la Grenouillère; "you do not find him too homely?" "Too homely! But, then, he has charming eyes. But, if he was frightful, your interesting yourself in him would change him." "He displeased me at first."
Cast down by such continuous disasters, Madame de la Grenouillère shed many tears. Seeing her inconsolable, the friends of the Countess proposed successively squirrels, learned canaries, white mice, cockatoos; but she would not listen to them; she even refused a superb spaniel who played dominoes, danced to music, ate salad, and translated Greek.
Mother Michel took up her residence near her sister, provided handsomely for all the children, and selected for her own retreat a pretty cottage situated in Low-Breton upon the banks of the river among the green trees. Faribole, received again into the service of Madame de la Grenouillère, conducted himself so well that his transient error was forgotten.
Mother Michel, after having spent more than half an hour in scouring the garden, returned to Madame de la Grenouillère and said: "Moumouth is absent, madame; but do not be anxious; he disappeared once before, and we found him in the garret." "Let him be searched for! I do not wish to wait. I desire to see him this instant!"
He imagined that the cat, so many times saved, was a fantastic being, capable of speaking, like the beasts in the fairy-tales, and he said to himself with a shiver: "I am lost! Moumouth is going to denounce me!" As soon as Madame de la Grenouillère learned how Moumouth had been recovered, she ordered young Faribole to be brought before her.
The health of Madame de la Grenouillère had been altered by the heavy shocks she had experienced in losing her favorite animals. The tenderness and graces of Moumouth would perhaps have been sufficient to attach her to life; but the respectable lady had reached an age when sorrows press very heavily.
As it will be very warm after breakfast, mamma will not go out. She always feels the heat very much. We will leave her with your friend, and you shall take me. They will think that we have gone into the forest. If you knew how much it will amuse me to see La Grenouillere!" They reached the iron gate opposite the Seine. A flood of sunshine fell upon the slumberous, shining river.
You know that we breakfast at eleven." He found her seated on a bench, with a book in her lap, some novel or other. She took his arm in a familiar and friendly way, with a frank and gay manner, as if nothing had happened the night before, and drew him toward the end of the garden. "This is my plan," she said. "We will disobey mamma, and you shall take me presently to La Grenouillere restaurant.
That night a messenger, sent from the Château de la Gingeole in Normandy, brought a letter to the Countess from her younger sister, who, having broken a leg in getting out of her carriage, begged the Countess, her only relative, to come to her at once. Madame de la Grenouillère was too sympathetic and kind-hearted to hesitate an instant. "I depart to-morrow," said she.
Go! you needn't pride yourself on your half-way benevolence! you have not done me a service; you have only prolonged my agony. I am an outcast, the whole world is against me, I am condemned to die; let my destiny be accomplished!" Madame de la Grenouillère was moved to tears. The cat seemed to her superhuman no, it was a cat; it seemed to her superanimal!
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