CHAPTER III.
THE LONESOME VISIT.
Flaxie came down to breakfast next morning feeling rather humble, but nobody noticed her, for they were all talking about the cat. The cellar-door had been left unfastened, and Kitty Gray had come up about midnight bringing a nice fat mouse. She mewed a long time, hoping her mistress would get out of bed and stroke her, and say, “Good pussy, pretty pussy!” But as Mrs. Gray would not rise, what do you think Kitty Gray did, for this is a true story?
She just walked into the dining-room where the table was always set overnight, jumped up to Mrs. Gray’s place by the waiter, and dropped the mouse beside her plate!
“There,” thought pussy, “she’ll see it now first thing in the morning, before she turns the coffee; and if she doesn’t say ‘Good pussy, pretty pussy,’ why—I’ll eat it!”
Of course when Mrs. Gray saw such a droll morsel lying on her napkin she laughed, sent for Kitty Gray, stroked her, and called her “Good pussy, pretty pussy; and the brightest pussy too that I ever saw!”
Even Mrs. Prim was laughing, and Flaxie began to hope her own behavior of yesterday was forgotten. But no, her mother called her into the nursery after breakfast, and said, as she took her in her lap:
“I am sorry to hear that my little girl has done so many wrong things since I have been gone.”
Flaxie dropped her head for shame, but raised it again indignantly.