THE UGLIEST ONE. 75

should butter its feet well as soon as they got it inside the
house, so that it might sit down to lick its paws and so forget
to run home again to its old home.

“They are going to send the ugliest one away,” said Ruth.
“T must run back and say good-bye to it.”

Some time passed before we went to Mrs Hird’s again,
and when we did the ugliest one was gone; but its mother and
grandmother had each kittens hidden away somewhere; they
were determined to keep their families to themselves this time,
and no one had yet found out their whereabouts.

Ruth and I had not long to stay at that visit, we were
obliged to hurry back because we were going for a long walk
that afternoon ; and lessons had to be done first. The boys had
a half-holiday, and we were all going to take the dogs for a
swim in the canal. It was great fun taking the dogs there; for
Bounce, who was a water spaniel, would give himself such airs,
and try to coax Lassie, a beautiful young collie dog, to go into
the water as he did himself. She did not like it, although when
once in she could swim as easily and well as a water-snake; she
always thought that some dreadful accident had happened to her
if she ever got out of her depth. She would hurry out of the
water and come to her master to be pitied; looking up into his
face with sad, gentle, brown eyes, trying to say, “Only think!
I might never have seen you any more!” Then she would not
go near the water again for ever so long.

That afternoon we were all very merry, and we went quite
a long way; far enough for us, though the dogs were never
satisfied, but always fixed three pairs of reproachful eyes at us
when we took a turning which seemed to be leading towards
home. At last we came to some marshy fields, crossed by
trenches filled with water, where Lassie walked most warily for
fear she should slip into a stream by accident, for she had