Once more he sat down in his chair, and leant his head on his hand to think, when he perceived, tucked into the hay at one side of the box, a card, and drew it forth hastily; a plain glazed visiting card on which was inscribed the words, “From a grateful friend,” in the same excellent handwriting as the label.
Mr. Neatby blushed, and looked guiltily at the happily supping kitten. In addition to being humane, Mr. Neatby was also charitable, and there were many poor who had reason to be grateful to him. But as he always gave alms through a third person, and was one of those modest people who take care that their left hand knows not what the right hand doeth, he felt quite upset.
Presently he heard his landlady and her niece come in, and rang again.
“Who brought this box, Mrs. Vyner?” he asked, holding it up toward her.
“I can’t say, sir, I’m sure. It was dark when I answered the door, and a young man—leastways, I think ’e was young—simply give it into my ’ands and ran down the steps again. I ’eld it under the gas in the ’all, sir, and read the label, as it was for you right enough, so I brings it in and lays it down without never interruptin’ you, sir, like you said.”
“There was a kitten in that box,” Mr. Neatby said solemnly, in such a tone as might have announced some national calamity.
“Sakes alive! you don’t say so, sir,” cried Mrs. Vyner in great excitement; “shall you keep it, sir?”
“I don’t know yet,” Mr. Neatby said gravely; “it must stay here for to-night anyway.”
“It’s a pretty little thing, sir,” said the landlady, stooping down to look at it where it lay basking in the heat of the fire. “’Twould be company for you, wouldn’t it, sir?”
“Hadn’t it better go with you to the kitchen for to-night, Mrs. Vyner?” Mr. Neatby asked persuasively, and Mrs. Vyner, with many protestations of wonder, gathered up the kitten into her apron and departed to the lower regions, where she informed the niece who lived with her that their lodger “’adn’t spoken so many words to ’er never before, no, not in a month of Sundays.”