WINNING THE BOOK. 15

cat, its stained fur showing that it had been
shot.

“Poor thing!” said Nellie to herself. “What
a shame to kill it!”

She picked it up, laid it in her basket, and
set off back as fast as she could. Another
squeeze through the gate, and then she was
once more on ground where she had a right to
be and need not fear being seen.

Her next act was to walk slowly along by
the outside of the wood for some distance
until she came to a place where the ditch
separating her from the hedge-was deeper and
more overgrown than in other parts. Into
this ditch she dropped the cat, and leaving it
there she went back as far as the wood gate
with her empty basket.

All this trouble Nellie was taking so as to
win Miss Rayner’s book without either getting
into trouble for trespassing or telling what she
- considered “a story.”

Again she turned back and went over the
same ground until a tip of white tail showed
her that she had reached the right spot.

Soon after she was on her way home with
a heavy burden, that tired her arm so much