CHAPTER X.
THOMAS THE CAT--MY GREAT-GRANDFATHER'S SKETCHES--ADOLPHE IS MY FRIEND--MY GREAT-GREAT-GREAT-GRANDFATHER DISTURBS MY REST--I LEAVE THE VINE.
My great-grandfather had, as I said, some skill in painting.

He was gifted with an intense sense of, and love for, colour.

I am sure he saw colours where other people did not.

What to common eyes was a mass of grey, or green, was to him a pleasant combination of many gay and delicate hues.

He distinguished severally the innumerable bright threads in Nature's coat of many colours, and in simple truth I think that each was a separate joy to him.
He had a white Persian cat of an artistic temperament, which followed him in his walks, dozed on the back of his arm-chair, and condescended to share his tea when it reached a certain moderate temperature.