THE NEW KITTEN.

SAY, you know, this sort of thing won't do. I’m the cat in this
house. Have you dropped in to pay a visit, or do you think you're
going to stop?”

“ I should like to stop, please.”

“I dare say you would. But allow me to remark that one cat's enough for
a small family like ours; besides, we have a dog, and a duck, and a bowl of
gold-fish, and three children, to say nothing of the ‘ grown-ups.’

“Why don’t you go back to your own people?”

“Because my people have gone, and have forgotten to take me with them.”

The above conversation took place between two kittens: they were both
tabbies, but there the resemblance between them ceased. One was fat and
sleek, and had a red collar, and was evidently well cared for; while the other
was a poor, thin, half-starved looking little creature. The thin kitten had just
walked into the kitchen, where the fat kitten, whose name was Fluff, was
warming herself by the fire.

At that moment the children came running in from their morning's play
in the garden, where Maud and
Lily had been skipping and behav-
ing quite properly, as good little
girls should, while Tom had been
mischievous as usual, chasing the
fowls, and holding the ducks under
the pump, in fact, behaving as a
good little boy shouldn’t.

‘‘Halloa, here’s a poor kitten!”
cried Lily, “I wonder where it
came from?”

‘“‘Let’s go and ask mother if we
can keep it,” said Maud, “ the poor
little thing looks so miserable.”

 

Away ran the children, and returned to the kitchen in a few minutes with
the news that the New Kitten could stop as long as it liked.

“Well,” said Fluff to herself, “if this isn’t disgusting, I don’t know
what is. Here am I, who am an educated cat, who have been taught never
to look at the canary and the gold-fish, who have had half-a-dozen lessons