Produced by David Edwards, Woodie4 and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Transcribers note. | | | |To assist readers, some illustration tags have had descriptions | |added. These have been marked with an asterisk. | | | |Only 'The Hunter Cats of Connorloa', is transcribed in this e-text.| +-------------------------------------------------------------------+ CAT STORIES. BY HELEN JACKSON (H. H.), AUTHOR OF "RAMONA," "NELLY'S SILVER MINE," "BITS OF TALK," ETC. LETTERS FROM A CAT. MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY. THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1886. THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. [Illustration: CONNORLOA.] THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. BY HELEN JACKSON (_H. H._), AUTHOR OF "LETTERS FROM A CAT," "MAMMY TITTLEBACK AND HER FAMILY," ETC. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1886. _Copyright_, 1884, BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. [Illustration: Decorative panel]* THE HUNTER CATS OF CONNORLOA. I. Once on a time, there lived in California a gentleman whose name was Connor,--Mr. George Connor. He was an orphan, and had no brothers and only one sister. This sister was married to an Italian gentleman, one of the chamberlains to the King of Italy. She might almost as well have been dead, so far as her brother George's seeing her was concerned; for he, poor gentleman, was much too ill to cross the ocean to visit her; and her husband could not be spared from his duties as chamberlain to the King, to come with her to America, and she would not leave him and come alone. So at the time my story begins, it had been many years since the brother and sister had met, and Mr. Connor had quite made up his mind that he should never see her again in this world. He had had a sorry time of it for a good many years. He had wandered all over the world, trying to find a climate which would make him well. He had lived in Egypt, in Ceylon, in Italy, in Japan, in the Sandwich Islands, in the West India Islands. Every place that had ever been heard of as being good for sick people, he had tried; for he had plenty of money, and there was nothing to prevent his journeying wherever he liked. He had a faithful black servant Jim, who went with him everywhere, and took the best of care of him; but neither the money, nor the good nursing, nor the sea air, nor the mountain air, nor the north, south, east or west air, did him any good. He only tired himself out for nothing, roaming from place to place; and was all the time lonely, and sad too, not having any home.