The Windfairies: And Other Tales by Mary De Morgan

Author:Mary De Morgan
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Fairy tales, Children's stories
Publisher: Standard Ebooks
Published: 2026-02-20T15:02:24+00:00

The Story of a Cat

Once there lived an old gen­tle­man who was a very rich old gen­tle­man, and able to buy nearly everything he wanted. He had earned all his wealth for him­self by trad­ing in a big city, and now he had grown so fond of money that he loved it bet­ter than any­thing else in the world, and thought of noth­ing ex­cept how he could save it up and make more. But he nev­er seemed to have time to en­joy him­self with all that he had earned, and he was very angry if he was asked to give money to oth­ers. He lived in a hand­some house all alone, and he had a very good cook who cooked him a sump­tu­ous din­ner every day, but he rarely asked any­one to share it with him, though he loved eat­ing and drink­ing, and al­ways had the best of wine and food. His cook and his oth­er ser­vants knew that he was greedy and hard, and cared for nobody, and though they served him well be­cause he paid them, they none of them loved him.

It was one Christ­mas, and the snow lay thick upon the ground, and the wind howled so fiercely that the old gen­tle­man was very glad he was not ob­liged to go out in­to the street, but could sit in his com­fort­able arm­chair by the fire and keep warm.

“It really is ter­rible weath­er,” he said to him­self, “ter­rible weath­er;” and he went to the win­dow and looked out in­to the street, where all the pave­ments were inches deep in snow. “I am very glad that I need not go out at all, but can sit here and keep warm for today, that is the great thing, and I shall have some ado to keep out the cold even here with the fire.”

He was leav­ing the win­dow, when there came up in the street out­side an old man, whose clothes hung in rags about him, and who looked half frozen. He was about the same age as the old gen­tle­man in­side the win­dow, and the same height, and had grey, curly hair, like his, and if they had been dressed alike any­one would have taken them for two broth­ers.

“Oh, really,” said the old gen­tle­man ir­rit­ably, “this is most an­noy­ing. The par­ish ought to take up these sort of people, and pre­vent their wan­der­ing about the streets and mo­lest­ing hon­est folk,” for the poor old man had taken off his hat, and began to beg.

“It is Christ­mas Day,” he said, and though he did not speak very loud, the old gen­tle­man could hear every word he said quite plainly through the win­dow. “It is Christ­mas Day, and you will have your din­ner here in your warm room. Of your char­ity give me a sil­ver shil­ling that I may go in­to an eat­ing-shop, and have a din­ner too.”

“A sil­ver shil­ling!” cried the old gen­tle­man, “I nev­er heard of such a thing! Mon­strous! Go away, I nev­er give to beg­gars, and you must have done some­thing very wicked to be­come so poor.

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