AND HER CAT. 85

improbable. But Dame Mitchell’s grief and anxiety had
so greatly disturbed her, that she sought for any thing to
feed her hopes.

“In the garret, is he?” cried the dame, without no-
ticing the rest of the sentence. “Let us go, my dear sir,
let us go there and look for him. Let me lean on your
arm, for I am so perplexed, so disconcerted, and so spent
with fatigue, that I have not strength enough left to go
u ue?

They both bent their way to the garret, and Dame
Mitchell, with a lantern in her hand, went through and
rummaged every attic. But no living creature was to be
seen.

“You have been mistaken once more,” muttered the
dame, despondingly.

* Not so, not so,” answered the wicked butler; “let us
continue the search, and we shall find him at last: I know
we shall. We have not looked in that nook yonder, behind
the wood bundles.”

The credulous dame went up
to the spot pointed out to her,
and, to the utter amazement of
the deceitful Sharpphiz, the
cat, whom he thought he had
drowned, lay there alive and
hearty, and his eyes gleamed
with indignation at his foe.

“Tt is he, it is he, indeed!” cried Dame Mitchell, in
ecstasy, as she caught up Mowmouth in her arms. “Oh!
my dear, dear Mister Sharnphi! my good and trusty
friend, how thankful I am that you brought me here!”

The surly butler was not much gratified with these
praises, which he felt he did not deserve. Pale, shivering,
rooted to the spot where he was standing, he hung down
his head in the presence of his victim, thus unaccountably
restored to life. And yet there was no wonder in it:

c