"'I bring him to you because I trust you,' she said as plainly as looks
can speak. 'Downstairs they handle him all the time, and it is not good
for kittens to be handled. Here he is safe from harm, and here he shall
remain,' After a few weak remonstrances, the futility of which I too
clearly understood, her persistence carried the day. I removed my
clothing from the closet, spread a shawl upon the floor, had the door
taken from its hinges, and resigned myself, for the first time in my
life, to the daily and hourly companionship of an infant.

"I was amply rewarded. People who require the household cat to rear her
offspring in some remote attic or dark corner of the cellar have no idea
of all the diversion and pleasure that they lose. It is delightful to
watch the little, blind, sprawling, feeble, helpless things develop
swiftly into the grace and agility of kittenhood. It is delightful to
see the mingled pride and anxiety of the mother, whose parental love
increases with every hour of care, and who exhibits her young family as
if they were infant Gracchi, the hope of all their race. During Nero's
extreme youth, there were times when Agrippina wearied both of his
companionship and of her own maternal duties. Once or twice she
abandoned him at night for the greater luxury of my bed, where she slept
tranquilly by my side, unmindful of the little wailing cries with which
Nero lamented her desertion. Once or twice the heat of early summer
tempted her to spend the evening on the porch roof which lay beneath my
windows, and I have passed some anxious hours awaiting her return, and
wondering what would happen if she never came back, and I were left to
bring up the baby by hand.

"But as the days sped on, and Nero grew rapidly in beauty and
intelligence, Agrippina's affection for him knew no bounds. She could