CHAPTER XV: A feathered pet.
No record of those dear, distant days would be complete without a short memoir of "Kitty." She was only a grey Dorking hen, but no heroine in fact or fiction, no Lady Rachel Russell or _Fleurange,_ ever exceeded Kitty in unswerving devotion to a beloved object, or rather objects.
To see Kitty was to admire her, at least as I saw her one beautiful spring evening in a grassy paddock on the banks of the Horarata.

We had ridden over there to visit our kind and friendly neighbours, the C----'s; we had enjoyed a delicious cup of tea in the passion-flower-covered verandah, which looked on the whole range, from East to West, of the glorious Southern Alps, their shining white summits sharply cut against our own peculiarly beautiful sky; we had strolled round the charming, unformal garden, on either sloping side of a wide creek, and had admired, with just a tinge of envy, the fruits and flowers, the standard apple and rose trees, the tangle of fern and creepers, the wealth of the old and new worlds heaped together in floral profusion; we had done all this, I say, and very pleasant we had found it.

Now we were trying to say goodbye: not so easy a task, let me tell you, when there are so many temptations to linger, and when you are greatly pressed to stay.

The last device of our hospitable hostess to keep us consisted in offering to show me her poultry-yard.

Now I was a young beginner in that line myself, and tormented my ducks and fowls to death by my incessant care: at least that is the conclusion I have arrived at since; but at that time, I considered it as necessary to look after them as if they had been so many children.