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I could not but be deeply affected by the tenderness, at once so pure and so impassioned, with which these words were uttered, and in a voice that would have rendered musical the roughest sounds in the rudest tongue. And for a moment it did occur to me that I might avail myself of Zee's agency to effect a safe and speedy return to the upper world.
At our house, we always had a full table, and at Grandpa Van Der Zee's there had to be more on the board than could possibly be consumed or there was not enough to please the Baas. At the Massasoit, there was a fair show in the dining-room, but on trial the things provided were not acceptable. The milk was thin, and the butter and eggs not at all like those at home, fresh from the farm.
There are times, when I have seen Zee's thoughtful majesty of face lighted up by this crowning halo, that I could scarcely believe her to be a creature of mortal birth, and bent my head before her as the vision of a being among the celestial orders. But never once did my heart feel for this lofty type of the noblest womanhood a sentiment of human love.
Now when Zee's voice and eyes thus softened and at that softening I prophetically recoiled and shuddered Taee, who had accompanied us in our flights, but who, child-like, had been much more amused with my awkwardness, than sympathising in my fears or aware of my danger, hovered over us, poised amidst spread wings, and hearing the endearing words of the young Gy, laughed aloud.
She was not to be put off like an everyday cat with saucers of milk and scraps of meat; she must have the choicest bits from the table. "Mrs. McQuilken says the best-fed cats make the best mousers," said Edith. "Is that so, Miss Edith? Then the mice here at Castle Cliff haven't long to live!" laughed good-natured Mr. Templeton, as he handed Zee's little mistress a pitcher of excellent cream.
Before I arrived this was Zee's chamber; she had hospitably assigned it to me. Some hours after the waking up which is described in my last chapter, I was lying alone on my couch trying to fix my thoughts on conjecture as to the nature and genus of the people amongst whom I was thrown, when my host and his daughter Zee entered the room.
McQuilken had just mended Zee's bleeding member with a piece of court-plaster. All the boarders were grouped about on the lawn and veranda talking it over. Mrs. Dunlee held in her lap a very forlorn and crumpled little bundle of kitty; and Edith and Eddo were crying as if their hearts would break. "That beautiful, beautiful tail!" sobbed Edith.
"Ah, good morning; how do you all do?" said the lady, meeting the children with courteous smiles. "I see you've brought your kitten, Edith." "Yes, ma'am; will you please look at her wounds again?" "They are pretty well healed, dear. I've never felt much concerned about Zee's wounds. She makes believe half of her sufferings for the sake of being petted." "Does she, though? I'm so glad."
And then the long, sweeping black tail! Mrs. McQuilken watched the little girl's face and no longer doubted her fondness for kittens. "I call her Zee for short. Look at that now!" And Mrs. McQuilken straightened out the tail which was coiled around Zee's back. "Oh, how beautifully long!" cried Edith. "Long? I should say so!
Under these anxious circumstances, fortunately, my conscience and sense of honour were free from reproach. It became clearly my duty, if Zee's preference continued manifest, to intimate it to my host, with, of course, all the delicacy which is ever to be preserved by a well-bred man in confiding to another any degree of favour by which one of the fair sex may condescend to distinguish him.
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