She never worried--much, though she confessed at first it was rather trying, and that she caught herself wandering about looking into corners, searching for what she knew went away in a basket the day before. It was just a habit mothers got into, and when a few weeks had elapsed she just shook herself and thought no more of the kitten that had gone to make its mark on some one else's chair cushions. 'Dear me!' she used to say, 'I have on an average five kittens a year. What should I do with them all hanging about, getting in my way at every turn? I should become irritable, I should snap at them, I should positively hate them as soon as they became independent and I could do nothing for them. It is best as it is.' After that speech of mother's, I was not so sure that I wanted to be the kitten They chose to keep, that is, if mother meant to turn round and bully me as soon as I could stand up for myself. It seemed strange to hear her talk like that, and yet one likes to be forewarned. Rosamond gave us temporary names--reach-me-down names, she called them. Fred B. Nicholson was allowed to stand; the boy Auntie May called Admiral Togo, a Japanese name, I understand. The two girls were Zobeide and Blanch. I was called Loki, after the devil. They did not know, but we all had one name already, a traditional one in our family. It was Pasht. Our ancestors lived at a place called Bubastis. For convenience' sake, however, we stuck to the names They gave us. They seemed to have an idea that we should answer to them and come when we were called, but mother told us on no account ever to do so, it would be false to every tradition of our class. We might go as far as to twitch an ear when we heard our name spoken pleasantly, but only on the very rarest occasions were we to stir a paw. Then, if we decided to go to Them, it was at least manners to stop half-way and scratch. If the name was spoken in an unfriendly tone, the thing to do was just to stare the impertinent creature down. At Bubastis, in the olden time, our ancestors had been worshipped and prayed to. In the studio downstairs, where mother had been a constant visitor in the days when she was free of domestic cares, there is one of our ancestors under a glass case just as he was buried when he died thousands of years ago. He is all wrapped in a sort of brown greased cloth, so mother says, many hundred folds of it, but still you can perfectly well see the original shape of our many-hundreds-of-times-over great-uncle. Nobody has ever unwrapped him; it would be very wicked to do it, and might bring misfortune on the house. Altogether he is treated with the greatest respect, and mother is quite content to have it so. We are taught to look on that room not as the studio as They do, but as the Family Tomb, and mother says that when we grow up and are permitted to sit there sometimes, we must all keep very quiet and behave seriously and do no romping. CHAPTER II