Freddy didn't quite understand that he was being disapproved of, but he got on her knee in a friendly way and curled round and rubbed his long tooth against the left wing of her nose, causing her thereby great discomfort. He meant well, but it all went to prove what she said, that his manners were not refined. Mother and I thought he had better go, but indeed we were not consulted. He went in a basket. Mother didn't say goodbye to him formally. I don't think she noticed. Then Rosamond came down to stay in Egerton Gardens, and I got at the truth of the situation from her. She was now sixteen, and had grown quite ugly. Children, they say, grow in and out. Well, she was 'out' now. She was a very sensible girl, though. 'I believe Mr. Fox is very fond of you, Auntie May,' she said one day, 'and would like to marry you, but he simply can't get at you for your cats.' 'Oh, that is what you think, do you?' said Auntie May, not taking much notice of her, but going on with what she was doing very hard. 'Yes, and he is trying to exterminate them one by one,' said Rosamond. 'You see he has got rid of Freddy, and very soon he will be making you an offer for Loki. As for dear old Petronilla, anybody can see that he won't have to wait long for her, she is on her last legs. Oh, Auntie dear, say you will marry him when Petronilla dies, and then _see_ if he doesn't manage to give her poison.' 'Rosamond, what an odious suggestion! Mr. Fox is very nice--much too nice to do that--and besides, as I said to him, "Love me, love my cats."' 'Ah, so you have spoken to him about it?' gibed the horrid little girl. 'Now you _have_ given yourself away. Well, what does Mr. Fox say? Does he love you enough to wait for Petronilla's death?' 'Don't talk nonsense, child. I am not going to marry Mr. Fox at all, whether Pet were to die to-morrow or live to be a hundred, as I am sure I hope she will, poor lamb! As for Mr. Fox, our tastes are too absolutely dissimilar for anything of that kind to be possible.' 'Quite possible, _I_ think, if only the cat difficulty could be got over,' said that naughty Rosamond. 'I believe you two adore each other! And aren't you grateful to him for bringing your horrid cat--horrid from his point of view I mean--across to Paris for you? I think it was angelic, like a knight of old, performing terribly difficult tasks to please his lady.' 'Will you hold your silly little tongue? Go and do your health exercises!' That was the way she always got rid of Rosamond, by some order or another. You see Rosamond, though she was sixteen, still had to obey. Yet though Auntie May was older than Rosamond, that child could turn her round her little finger. Luckily mother was not in the room when Rosamond said those nasty things about her age. But I thought over them deeply. It was true mother had grown very thin and weak lately; several times I have heard Mary say when lifting her up: 'Why, she don't weigh no more than a feather!'