"Look out and see them," whispered Miss Dudley to me.
I peeped through the blinds. A handsome and very graceful olive-hued
boy, apparently about fourteen years old, with a form like that of the
Mercury upborne by a zephyr, eyes like stars, lashes like star-beams,
and an expression that would have made him a good study for a picture of
Puck, half leaning, half sitting, on the stone balustrade, was tenderly
dandling in his arms a huge, vulgar-looking, gray, striped stable-cat,
that rolled and writhed therein in transports of comfort and affection.
"But, indeed, Paul," remonstrated another voice, _tout comme un serin_,
"Pet ought to be whipped instead of hugged! Lily says so."
"Tiger Lily? What a cruel girl! O, my Pettitoes! how can she say so?"
"Why," answered another girlish voice, a little firmer, but hardly less
sweet, than the first, "only think! While we were all in school, he
watched his opportunity and killed the robin that lives in the
crab-apple-tree. The gardener says he heard it cry, and ran with his
hoe; and there was this wicked, horrid, grim, great Pet galloping as
fast as he could gallop to the stable, with its poor little beak
sticking out at one side of his grinning mouth, and its tail at the
other!"
"Why, Pettitoes! how very inconsiderate! You won't serve it so another
time, _will_ you? Though how a robin can have the face to squeak when he
catches it himself at noon, after cramming himself with worms the whole
morning, is more than I can see!"
"O no, Paul! He was singing most sweetly! I heard him; and so did Rose.
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