“Peggy, Peggy, where are you?” said a voice from the interior of the cottage: “I want you, child.”
“Coming, mother,” replied Peggy; “only I am looking at a pretty Robin Willy has brought me.”
“A Robin!” returned her mother; “then mind the cat you have been nursing all the afternoon. The bird would not like her so well as she would like him.”
“So Willy says, mother; and I am going to put puss in the shed, till he can take her back. May I, mother?”
“Yes, child, and make haste, for I want you here.”
Peggy made great haste, and when her mother had done with her, she returned to her brother, who had now entered the cottage, and requested to have me in her hand.
“Gently, then,” said Willy: “do not pinch it: it is not like a cat.”
“Oh! I will take great care,” said she, and she took me very tenderly from the boy, greatly surprised that I did not flutter, or struggle to get from her; and still more so, when, gently disengaging myself from her feeble grasp, I perched on her shoulder. “Oh! you dear little creature,” said she, “why you know me already. But how did you contrive to make him so tame, Willy?”
“I did nothing to him,” said the boy; “I got him only this evening.” And then he related what my readers already know, about his finding me in the cage.
“Come, William,” said the boy’s mother, “get your supper, for I am sure you must be hungry; but, stop a moment, first take off your coat, that I may put a patch on the elbow. I cannot bear to see you in rags; no more could your poor father, he was always so tidy.”