Posy looked very sad to think she had been the cause of so much trouble, and Papa could never bear to see his little girl unhappy; so he caught her in his arms and kissed her, saying,—
“But I can’t help loving you, if you are naughty.”
“Hannah,” said Posy, as Hannah entered to take away the breakfast, “my papa says it was very naughty in me to lock you down cellar, but that he loves me still.”
“Michael,” said Mr. Winton, as the horse was brought around to the door to take him to the depot, “the rats gnawed a hole through the wall in the china-closet last night, and I want you to stop it up with mortar and broken glass.”
“All right, sir,” answered Michael. “If the barn-cat could be in two places to onst, it’s no rats ye’d have in the house. She’s a rale knowing baste, is the barn-cat. If you could only see the sinsible way she has wid them kittens of hers. She kapes thim out of doors in foine weather; and when the jew begins to fall, if it’s shut the door is, she kapes thim walking about, for fear it’s a cold they’ll get.”
“Let’s go and see them,” said Tom; and off ran the children as Mr. Winton stepped into the carriage and drove off.
Then, when all was still in the dining-room, a slight noise might have been heard in the china-closet, and a long nose and a pair of very sharp black eyes appeared in the now rat-hole.
Looking cautiously around, and stopping every minute to listen, the rat ventured out. He was quite gray about the mouth from age, and had a particularly vicious look in his shrewd old eyes. Finding all still, he ventured out a little farther, and still farther, and at last slid down from the shelf and entered the dining-room.
Mrs. Polly’s quick ears had heard him, and she watched him as he noiselessly moved about, picking up the crumbs that had fallen from the table.
“Hallo!” called out Mrs. Polly.