“Nancy,” he said, when they had driven a few minutes in silence, “how should you like to stay with us?”
“Oh!” cried Posy, clapping her hands and jumping up and down with joy, “I thought it would end so, you dear, good, kind Papa!” and Posy threw her arms around Papa’s neck, and hugged him till she knocked off his hat and nearly fell out of the carriage herself.
“I should like it very much indeed,” said Nancy, with a gleam of happiness in her dark eyes.
So little Nancy went to her new home, and a cot-bed was put in Hannah’s room for her.
“Hannah’s awful cross,” said Tom to Nancy.
“But her’s good, Tom,” said Posy.
“‘Her bark’s worse than her bite,’ Papa says.”
Meanwhile old Graywhisker was almost beside himself with rage at the overthrow of his hopes. When he escaped from the barn-cat, he disappeared down the private entrance to the barn and remained there quietly until he was sure the barn-cat was out of the way. Then he crept cautiously out and ran to his own hole.
When he emerged from the long, dark passage-way into his living-room, imagine the confusion that met his eyes! His bed torn to pieces and scattered all around, and his precious hen’s egg that he had transported with so much care and difficulty, broken! He gave a quick glance up at the nail where he had hung the red ribbon with the gold figures on it. It was empty.
“Gone!” he shrieked. “Stolen! but I’ll be revenged! This will be the dearest piece of mischief you ever did, my dear barn-cat! I’d give a good deal to know who was the cat’s paw this time;” and his shrewd old eyes peered keenly about for some traces left by the thief. “Aha!” he said, with an ugly grin that showed the broken tooth in front; and he sat on his haunches and held up a little gray feather. “It was you, was it, my dear little cock-sparrow? The barn-cat sent you in, did she, to get the chestnuts out of the fire for her? I wonder, my dear friends, if before very long you’ll wish you had left the little ribbon alone! The old rat will be one too many for you, my dear creatures, I am afraid!”