AND HER CAT. 55

without faltering; but, at the thought of relinquishing his
new shoes, to go barefooted, as formerly, over roads of
gravel and broken glass, the unhappy Nicholas could not
help hesitating a little, and Daddy Sharpphiz, who narrowly
watched him, availed himself like a consummate diplomatist
of the circumstance.

“ Blockhead!” said he, “you reject the opportunity of
being happy, when your happiness can be secured at so easy
arate. IfI spoke to you of killing a man, I could under-
stand I could approve of your scruples; but I simply ask
you to destroy a cat, a pitiful cat! Why should you shrink
from it? Whatisacat? Nothing! less than nothing. Nobody
sets any value on a cat; the piemen cook them, and serve
them up to their customers, the most renowned physicians
try their experiments upon them, and kill them by hun-
dreds. So little are they valued, that when one of them
gives birth to seven or eight kittens only one is kept, and
the rest flung into the river.”

* But Mowmouth is grown up, Mowmouth is reared
and bred,” said Nicholas, sadly; “and, what’s more than
all, I love him.”

«You love him! you dare to love him!” cried the but-
ler, with immoderate rage. “ Well, for my part, I hate
him; and he shall die!”

* But what has he done to you?”

“‘ Never mind; I say he shall die! That’s enough.”

“ Forgive him,” cried Nicholas; falling down upon his
knees before the unrelenting Sharpphiz.

“TJ will not forgive him,” answered the butler, snarl-
ingly. “TI will not forgive either him or you. Come,
go; be off this instant! It rains in torrents: you will be
soaked with wet, and die of cold this night—so much the
better! Ah! you love Mowmouth! Do you?”

A fierce and heavy rain, mingled with hail, was heard
to beat against the window frames of the room, and the
wind began to howl along the galleries of the man-