'Thank you very much,' Auntie May said, 'but Tom, my brother-in-law, will meet us. There he is!' Then, I think, she forgot all about the bishop, for she said to some one at the carriage window, in a fearfully excited voice, 'Oh, Tom, how is she? I _have_ brought a kitten--' Tom did not answer, but I fancy he shook his head, or something that didn't seem hopeful, for Auntie May squeaked, 'Oh dear!' in not at all her usual voice. Tom seemed only business-like. 'Where's your ticket? Hand it over. Had you to take a dog ticket for this little brute?' '_Tom!_' 'All right. Come on!' They did not say a word to each other till we had walked a little way and stood about a little, and Auntie May had taken a step up with me and sat down. And then the rolling and rocking began again. I was nearly dead with fuss and different ways of travelling. But I listened to what was said. 'She hardly knew us yesterday,' he was saying. He had a deep big voice, much louder than May's father's voice, but then Mr. Graham is an artist and Tom Gilmour is a sportsman, and is always calling to things across bogs and moors to follow him or come to heel, so mother told me. He went on, choking rather: 'It was a sort of faint. She got quite cold, and the nurse said, "_Anything_ to rouse her, sir! I wish she had a pet, sir!" And I was sending for you anyhow, and so I said, "Would a kitten do?" and the woman said, "Might try it, sir." So I sent that message to you, "_Bring a cat!_" Pretty comic, wasn't it? Ho, ho!' It was a melancholy sort of cackle, but Auntie May cried out: 'Oh, Tom, how can you laugh with Beatrice in such a state?' She began to cry herself and rock about in the carriage. 'Better to laugh than cry with an invalid any day,' said Tom. 'And I tell you what, May, my dear, if you are going to be a hysterical muff, you had much better not have come down at all. You will do Beatrice more harm than good. Stow it, can't you? Good Lord, now there's the wretched brute in the basket beginning to caterwaul!' I was _not_ caterwauling, only trying to tell Auntie May to be quiet and that Tom was quite right. But one is so easily misunderstood. However, Auntie May got sensible all at once, and thanked Tom for speaking sharply to her, and said she meant to do Beatrice good, not harm, and would he like to see the little kitten, and she had chosen the prettiest, and so on. 'If you like you can let the beast out,' he said roughly. 'I look upon all cats as vermin myself. I know I shoot 'em pretty quick when they come into the garden. They are so beastly destructive, you know, worse than rabbits even. Here, yank him out and let's see the little beggar.'