Need I to you, dearest Nymphalin, describe her perfection?
Suffice it to say that her skin was of the most delicate tortoiseshell, that her paws were smoother than velvet, that her whiskers were twelve inches long at the least, and that her eyes had a gentleness altogether astonishing in a cat.

But if the young beauty had suitors in plenty during the lives of monsieur and madame, you may suppose the number was not diminished when, at the age of two years and a half, she was left an orphan, and sole heiress to all the hereditary property.

In fine, she was the richest marriage in the whole country.
Without troubling you, dearest queen, with the adventures of the rest of her lovers, with their suit and their rejection, I come at once to the two rivals most sanguine of success,--the dog and the fox.
Now the dog was a handsome, honest, straightforward, affectionate fellow.

"For my part," said he, "I don't wonder at my cousin's refusing Bruin the bear, and Gauntgrim the wolf: to be sure they give themselves great airs, and call themselves '_noble_,' but what then?
Bruin is always in the sulks, and Gauntgrim always in a passion; a cat of any sensibility would lead a miserable life with them.

As for me, I am very good-tempered when I'm not put out, and I have no fault except that of being angry if disturbed at my meals.