"Johnny," said Mrs. Ransom, when Daisy had gone, "could you not arrange some place up in the garret where Daisy could keep her mice and they need not come in my way?"
"It is just what I was thinking of, mamma," said Johnny; "you need never know they were there."
"There now," said Carrie to herself, "so it is no harm at all for me to have my mice up there. I shall just keep them."
For repentant resolutions of giving up her hidden prize, and disposing of it in some way without betraying herself, were flitting through Carrie's mind; but now she put them from her again.
"First, we'll see if we cannot knock up some sort of a support to hold a hook in the garden-house," said Johnny, "and then we'll hang the cage upon that. The roof is so old and broken it will not hold; but we may put something in the wall to keep the cage out of the cat's reach, and we'll try it before we bring them in the house, mamma."
Daisy fed her mice, as she generally did at this time of the day,—the little creatures nibbled their food right out of her hand—played with and fondled them, talking to them the while in a coaxing, crooning voice of all her affairs, unconscious of the cruel, greedy eyes which were watching her every motion and those of her pets.
For Rover having gone, puss had made the most of her opportunities, and came creeping slowly and stealthily beneath bushes and behind walls, till she reached the garden-house once more; and climbing to the roof sat watching the little child and her playthings through a hole in the thatch.
And, by and by, this naughty bête noir thought her chance had come.
"Now, you ducky darlin's," said Daisy, "I b'lieve it's time for Frankie to come back to my house and play wif me. So you must go in your cage while I go and see, and we'll come back and play here where you can see us. No, you needn't want to go into the house wif me. Mamma don't like you, which is a great, great pity; but she can't help it."