On this occasion, however, she said rather mysteriously: "_I think something will happen to-night to you._" A good many jokes had been made about the probably uncanny atmosphere of my room, and the various spooks who were doubtless sharing it with me, so I laughed, thinking this was only the usual family joke. But Mrs Waverly was quite in earnest. At first she would give no reason for her remark, "fearing I should tell her daughters," and that she would be laughed at in consequence.
Reassured on this point, she said to me quite seriously:
"Whilst you were talking to my husband this evening I saw a black kitten run straight across your dress--just opposite to me."
"_Well, of course, I saw the kitten!_" I answered, to her surprise; "but there is nothing very remarkable about a black kitten in the house."
"_But we have no black kitten_ in the house, or anywhere on the premises. Where did it go to? You never saw it again? No; it was not an ordinary kitten, and I did not suppose till this moment that anyone had seen it but myself."
It was a fact that no one but Mrs Waverly and I had seen any kitten but the slate-coloured one already mentioned.
Thinking over this in the light of the sad news of my dear old friend's death, and noting the correspondence in time between her loss of consciousness and the appearance of the mysterious black kitten--seen only by Mrs Waverly and myself--it was impossible not to ask in the depths of my heart whether, perchance, the spirit of my faithful friend had been trying to send me some symbol of her approaching death.
It may be objected that black cats are generally connected with good luck. Well, I think my dear "London mother," as she called herself sometimes, would have explained this apparent contradiction very simply. She had lived through much sorrow, and was often oppressed by sore doubts of the Cosmic Love. I never knew any woman with such strong and passionate human sympathy, and to such fine spirits, the world, under present conditions, must always offer terrible problems. Her sympathies were sometimes too keen for that robust faith which can _always_ say: "God's in His heaven! All's right with the world!" Yet her last words were: "_I am so tired, and God will understand; and I am so glad to go._"