“What a little black love!” exclaimed Nancy; “where did you get it?”
“I saved its life,” was all David answered as Nurse packed them all into the waggonette.
“I helped,” said Ambrose.
It was not until they were fairly on their way and had shaken down into something like composure, that the history of the kitten could be told. It then appeared that David and Ambrose had heard feeble cries proceeding from a retired corner behind a caravan. They had at once left Jane, and gone to see what it was.
Finding two gypsy boys about to hang a black kitten, they had offered them sixpence to let it go, at which they had only laughed. The price had then risen to two shillings besides all the marbles Ambrose had in his pocket, and this being paid David had seized the kitten, and here it was.
“And so,” said Pennie, “you’ve both spent every bit of your money.”
“We couldn’t let them hang the kitten, you see,” remarked Ambrose.
At another time Pennie would have been the first to agree to this, and to feel interested in the rescue of the kitten; but now she was so full of her own good deed, that she only said coldly:
“It wasn’t worth nearly all that. Why, you can get a kitten for nothing—anywhere.”
David, still grasping his treasure, stared at her solemnly, for this speech was strangely unlike Pennie.