Evelyn Raymond - The Brass Bound Box

"First, let me ask if you were accustomed to speak of your father's wife in that manner?"

The girl was surprised by the other's tone, yet promptly answered: "Certainly. Everybody amongst father's artist friends called her either 'the second Mrs. John,' or 'Stepmother.' Either one it happened. Why?"

"It was most disrespectful."

At this uncompromising reply, Kate stared, exclaiming: "Why, you're a truth-teller yourself, aren't you?"

"I am. Did you not suppose so?" returned Miss Maitland, amused.

"Well, you see, I've been told you were very agreeable, and most of the really agreeable people I know lie like the mischief."

"Katharine!"

"Fact. And I've got into more scrapes for telling the truth than for any other thing I've done, except being kind to the little Snowballs. But – hark! What's that? Punch — Punch – You flippety-cap woman! Stop! Stop! Stop!"

An eruptive, agonized bark from the hall sent the girl thither at a bound, while Miss Eunice hastily followed, anxiously crying: "Philip! Sir Philip Sidney !"

Wildly beating the air with a long-handled broom, her cap-frills flying, her spectacles awry, the Widow Sprigg was vainly endeavoring to restore peace between Punch, the newcomer, and Sir Philip Sidney, the venerable Angora cat which had hitherto "ruled the roost."

The pug, with a native curiosity almost as great as Susanna's own, had slipped from the sitting-room unobserved and had wandered to the warm kitchen where Sir Philip lay asleep on his cushion, unmindful of interlopers till an ugly black muzzle was poked into his ribs, and he found his natural enemy coolly ruffling his silken fur.

Until then, Miss Eunice had boasted of her pet that he was as like his famous namesake as it was possible for any animal to be like any human being, and quoted concerning him that he was "sublimely mild, a spirit without spot." Indeed, Miss Maitland's beautiful "Angory" was one of the show animals of Marsden. He had been brought to his mistress by a returning traveller more years ago than most people remembered, and had continued to live his charmed and pampered life long after the ordinary age of his kind. With appetite always supplied with the best of food, his handsome body lodged luxuriously, it was small wonder that hitherto he had worn his aristocratic title with a gentleness befitting his historic prototype.

Now, suddenly, the pent-up temper of his past broke out in one terrific burst; and he bit, scratched, tore, and yowled with all the ferocity of youth, while Punch, realizing that he had stirred up a bigger rumpus than even his mischievous spirit desired, vainly sought to elude his enemy's attacks.

"Why, Philip! Sir Philip!" cried Miss Eunice, stooping to grasp her favorite's collar, and by his unlooked-for onrush against her own feet losing her balance and falling to the floor.

"Punch! You bad, bad dog! There – you woman! Don't you dare – don't you dare to strike him with that awful broom! If he needs punishing – I'll punish him myself! Oh, what a horrid place, what horrid folks, what a perfectly fiendish cat!" shrieked Kate, folding both arms tight about the pug's fat, squirming body, and rushing out-of-doors with him. But by this time his courage had returned, and, wriggling himself free, he rushed back to the battle.

Alas! that exciting affair was all over. Sir Philip's unwonted anger had proved too much for his strength, and, utterly exhausted, he now lay stretched upon his owner's lap as she still sat on the floor, stroking and caressing him most tenderly.

Katharine had followed Punch back to the kitchen, and was as startled as he was proud at the sight before them. Cocking his square head on one side, curling his tail, wrinkling his nose, and protruding his pink tongue even more than usual, he regarded his fallen foe with such comical satisfaction that Katharine's alarm gave place to amusement, and she laughed aloud. But the laugh died as quickly as it had risen when Aunt Eunice looked up and said, reproachfully:

"I fear it has killed him, poor fellow!"

"Oh, no, no! A little bit of a scrap like that kill a cat? I thought they had nine lives, and such a trifle – Why, Punch is as fresh as a daisy, and that proud! Just look at him!" cried the girl. Yet her enthusiasm was dashed by the expression of deep sorrow on Miss Maitland's face, and there were real tears in the widow's eyes as she now advanced, broom in hand, though without apparent anger, to sweep Punch out of the room.

Katharine was too surprised to protest, beyond quietly motioning the broom aside and lifting the now submissive pug to her shoulder, where he perched calmly contemplative of the disaster he had evoked.

"There, Eunice, don't fret. What can't be cured must be endured, you know, and even a cat can't die but once. Only he was such a cat! We sha'n't never see his like again, an' – Take care there, sis! Don't you know he always hated water?" exclaimed Susanna, resting upon her broom-handle, and bending above her anxious mistress till a dash from the dipper deluged both cat and lap.

Yet now full of sympathy and regret Kate did not pause in her work of restoration, and either the bath did revive Sir Philip or he had been on the point of recovery, for he suddenly sprang up, shook his drenched head, and staggered toward his cushion on the hearth, where he lay down and proceeded to smooth his disordered fur.

Then Kate put her arms around Miss Maitland and helped that lady to her feet, saying, earnestly:

"Oh, I am so sorry, and I am so glad! but it will never happen again. Poor old Sir Philip won't be in a hurry to fight, and Punch never does if he can help it. Do you, you darling?" she finished to the perplexed dog, which she had unceremoniously dropped from her shoulder when she had rushed for the water.

The pug gave a funny little wink of one intelligent eye, as if he fully understood; then slowly waddled across the rag-carpeted floor and curled himself up at a safe distance from Sir Philip, upon whom he kept a wary watch. But he was a weary dog by that time, and so glad of warmth and repose that he left even his own damaged coat to take care of itself for the present.

However, if he was calm, the Widow Sprigg was no longer so. Kate had not only drenched the cat and his mistress, but she had left a large puddle in the very centre of Susanna's "new brea'th" of rag carpet, its owner now indignantly demanding to know if Miss Eunice "was goin' to put up with any such doin's? That wery brea'th that I cut an' sewed myself, out of my own rags, an' not a smitch of your'n in it, an' hadn't much more'n just got laid down ready for winter. An' if it had come to this that dogs and silly girls was to be took in an' done for, cats, or no cats, Angory or otherwise, she, for one, Susanna Sprigg, wasn't goin' to put up with it, an' so I tell you, an' give notice, according."

During the delivery of this speech the widow's black eyes had glared through her spectacles so fiercely that the young visitor was alarmed, and said to Aunt Eunice, appealingly:

"Oh, please don't let her go just because I've come! I'll not stay myself, to make such trouble, even if you'll have me – and you haven't said so yet. There's that boarding-school left – "

Miss Maitland ignored the appeal, but looking through the window remarked to her irate assistant:

"That luggage shouldn't be left on the sidewalk, Susanna. Get Moses to help you bring it in. If a tramp should happen to pass he might make off with it."

By which quiet rejoinder Kate understood that she had been "accepted;" also that the house-mistress was not disturbed by the threat of her handmaid. Indeed, she discovered afterward that it was the widow's habit to threaten thus whenever her temper was a trifle ruffled; also, that nothing save death was apt to sever her relationship with the Maitland family, which she held far dearer than her own.