Don Pierrot de Navarre, being a native of Havana, needed a very warm temperature. This temperature was provided for him in our rooms; but about the house lay extensive gardens, separated by wire fences which offered no difficulties to a cat, and which were planted with large trees, in whose branches innumerable birds twittered and sang. Not infrequently Pierrot, profiting by an open door, would make his escape of evenings for the enjoyment of a private hunt over the lawns and the flower-beds wet with dew. Sometimes he had to wait till daylight before he could re-enter the house; for, though he mewed under the windows, his signal did not always rouse the sleepers within. His chest had always been delicate, and one chilly night he took a cold, which speedily developed into consumption. Poor Pierrot! he became painfully thin after a year of coughing. His fur, once so silky, lost its gloss, and reminded one of the dull, opaque whiteness of a winding-sheet. His great transparent eyes looked enormous by contrast with his poor little face. His pink nose grew pale, and he dragged his feet slowly along his favorite sunshiny wall, watching the yellow autumn leaves whirled along in spiral flights by the wind, and looking as though he were repeating to himself the elegy of Millevoye. There is nothing in the world more touching than a sick animal. It submits to its sufferings with such a sweet, sad resignation. Everything possible was done to save Pierrot. He had a skilful doctor, who stethoscoped him and felt his pulse. Asses’ milk was ordered, and the poor thing lapped it willingly enough from his little porcelain saucer. He would lie for long hours on our knees, stretched out, and immovable as the shadow of a sphinx. We could number his vertebræ with our fingers, like the beads of a rosary. When he tried to respond to our caresses by a feeble mew, it sounded like a death-rattle. On the day of his death, as he lay panting upon his side, he raised himself with a supreme effort and crept toward us, opening wide his dilated eyes with a look which seemed to claim our help with an intense supplication. It said plainly as words could say, “Come, save me, thou who art a man!” Then he staggered; his eyes became fixed; and he fell with a cry so desperate, so lamentable, so full of anguish, that we sat transfixed with silent horror. He was buried at the bottom of the garden, under a white-rose tree which still marks the place of his grave. Two or three years later Seraphita died also, of a mysterious disease against which all the resources of science proved unavailing. She is buried not far from Pierrot.