On my return home I dropped a silver coin into the housemaid's hand, and told her when the parcel of books arrived she was to carry it up to my room and say nothing about it. She seemed to understand, and asked no questions.
An hour later she came to my door with the books in her arms, and found me examining my new set of furs.
"Betty," I cried, throwing wide the door of my room, "come in and tell me all about my furs—how the man that sells them gets all those little heads and tails. Where do they get them? And how do they catch them? I want to know it all."
"Oh, miss," said Betty, stepping briskly into the room, nothing loath to accept the invitation to examine the new furs, "they lives out in the wild woods—these little critters, an' men poisons 'em, an' traps 'em. An' when they is dead, they skins 'em, tans the skins, an' makes 'em up into muffs, an' boas, an' tippets, an' fur coats, an' so forth, an' so forth."
"Poison and trap them!" I cried, "doesn't that make the little creatures suffer?"
"You bet!" said Betty.
"How cruel!" I added.
"Yes, miss, ain't it awful?" returned Betty, making a wry face. "They's a book just been throwed in at the door to-day telling all as to how it is done. The American Humane Association has wrote the book—they don't approve of killin' things. I'll bring it up an' let you read it."
Suiting the action to the thought Betty rushed away down to the kitchen for the book.