“You dreadful tiger cat!” she repeated.  It almost seemed as if her love for Aunt Blin let loose more desperately her denunciations.  There is something in human nature which turns most passionately,—­if it does turn,—­upon one’s very own.

“I can’t bear you!  I never shall!  You’re a horrid, monstrous, abominable, great, gray—­wolf!  I knew you were!”

Miss Bree fairly gasped.

When she got breath, she said slowly, mournfully, “O Bartholomew!  I thought I could have trusted you! Was you a murderer in your heart all the time?  Go away!  I’ve—­no—­con—­fidence in you!  No co-on—­fidence in you, Bartholomew Bree!”

It is impossible to write or print the words so as to suggest their grieved abandonment of faith, their depth of loving condemnation.

If Bartholomew had been a human being!  But he was not; he was only a great gray cat.  He retreated, shamefaced enough for the moment, under the table.  He knew he was scolded at; he was found out and disappointed; but there was no heart-shame in him; he would do exactly the same again.  As to being trusted or not, what did he care about that?

“I don’t believe you do,” said Aunt Blin, thinking it out to this same point, as she watched his face of greed, mortified, but persistent; not a bit changed to any real humility.  Why do they say “dogged,” except for a noble holding fast?  It is a cat which is selfishly, stolidly obstinate.

“I don’t know as I shall really like you any more,” said Aunt Blin, with a terrible mildness.  “To think you would have ate that little bird!”

Aunt Blin’s ideal Bartholomew was no more.  She might give the creature cheese, but she could not give him “confidence.”

Bel and the bird illustrated something finer, higher, sweeter to her now.  Before, there had only been Bartholomew; he had had to stand for everything; there was a good deal, to be sure, in that.

But Bel was so astonished at the sudden change,—­it was so funny in its meek manifestation,—­that she forgot her wrath, and laughed outright.

“Why, Auntie!” she cried.  “Your beautiful Bartholomew, who understood, and let alone!”

Aunt Blin shook her head.

“I don’t know.  I thought so.  But—­I’ve no—­con-fidence in him!  You’d better hang the cage up high.  And I’ll go out for the muffins.”

Bel heard her saying it over again, as she went down the stairs.

“No, I’ve no—­con-fidence in him!”

CHAPTER VIII.

TO HELP:  SOMEWHERE.

There was an administratrix’s notice tacked up on the great elm-tree by the Bank door, in Upper Dorbury Village.

All indebted to the estate of Joseph Ingraham were called upon to make payment,—­and all having demands against the same to present accounts,—­to Abigail S. Ingraham.