"I had a dream last night," she said. "It’s because of that I—I want Mrs. Slightly’s kittens to live. I dreamt that I was a mother cat, only in my dream I had but one little kitty. But it was all mine and I loved it. It had soft black hair with a white tuft in it—like its father." She looked straight at the white lock that was so singular a feature of Woolf’s dark hair. "And one afternoon when I had come back from a stroll I went to the basket to find that my Kitty was gone. I mewed for it everywhere. There was nowhere that I did not look. I couldn’t possibly, as a cat, know that the human I looked up to, the giver of food and all good things could do anything so evil as to make away with the precious thing. It was a nightmare. In my dream, I was searching, searching for hours. My cat-heart was breaking. When I woke up, I was mewing! Don’t laugh, Fred. And I made up my mind that I couldn’t have Mrs. Slightly’s kittens drowned. Oh, the people who drown kittens and take away calves from cows and lambs from sheep, must be hard-hearted beasts. Why, if I had a baby, a little soft warm baby, and somebody wanted to deprive me of it—Fred!" She caught at his arm. Startled by the sharp note of appeal in her voice he put a startled question. Maggy had cast her arms protectively round the basket where Mrs. Slightly and her kittens slept, all unconscious of issues concerning their fate. Her shoulders were shaking. She was moved by some extraordinary emotion. But when she turned to Woolf again she was calm. "I am quite sure," she said. XVII The change from the drab surroundings of the King’s Cross Road to Mrs. Lambert’s pretty house in South Kensington made Alexandra feel as though she had escaped from purgatory. Hers was the temperament that withers in a sad environment and expands in a bright one. Whilst in her lodgings she had had to put up with dinginess and discomfort: Albert Place was the antithesis of everything unpleasant. She seemed to breathe more freely there. The house was small, Georgian and white. Great wire baskets overflowing with pink climbing geraniums hung from its porch and balcony. Between its green iron railings and the front door was a strip of well-kept garden full of shrubs and ferns kept fresh and glistening with a constant supply of moisture. Inside it was equally delightful. Mrs. Lambert had a nice taste for form and color. Where Maggy would have put hot-toned plush and burnished copper the actress had quiet soft brocades and silver. Her furniture consisted mainly of delicate Georgian mahogany as decorative as it was comfortable. Alexandra reveled in it all.