84 THE UGLIEST ONE.

So we took Fitz-Griffin into the yard. The three dogs had
their kennels there; but Bounce never noticed cats, Lassie loved
everything, and Mumps leapt for joy, with all the rapture of
puppyhood at the sight of anything to romp with; so there was
no risk of harm from them to the new-comer. We made Fitz-
Griffin up a snug bed in the wood-house, but the fanciful little
fellow would not sleep there after the first night; we missed it
next evening, and found the kitten curled up like a snail on
Lassie’s back in her kennel. It always slept there after that—
having struck up a friendship with this doggie although it
hissed and arched its back at the others.

But if we supposed that Fitz-Griffin was going to live
peaceably in that yard while Ruth was in the house, it was quite a
mistake. Over the walls it could not get ; and yet in some extra-
ordinary way it still continued to appear wherever Ruth was.

If her bedroom door opened, in ran the kitten. If she was
having her music lesson, kitty howled outside, louder than the
piano, to be let in. Did it run in when cook opened the door
into the yard? She declared not; but said she was always
finding that door open when she was ‘‘certain sure” she had
shut it tight. And another very strange thing began to happen
at this same time. The dogs were always wandering into the
house—a thing which was not allowed.

The yard door opened into the scullery, the scullery into
the kitchen, through a door usually left open, and the kitchen
into the passage which led by a back staircase to the rest of the
house.

Bounce being a spoilt old friend was sometimes allowed to
lie by the kitchen fire. He could be trusted with untold legs of
mutton roasting in front of it. But as to Lassie and Mumps—
well, I am sorry to say that their consciences were not formed yet.
It grieved Bounce to see how loose their principles were; and