One day, after mamma had stepped on kittens, and fallen over kittens, till her patience was all gone, she said she believed she must have the kittens drowned, they were so much in the way. Pussy Gray, their mother, was in the room, and heard what was said. She at once went out of the door, calling the kittens after her.
That night they didn't come back, nor the next day, nor the next; and, now that they were really gone, mamma began to feel badly. So she searched all through the garden, calling "Kitty, kitty;" but though she looked down the cellar-stairs, and under the back-doorsteps, and everywhere she could think of, no kitten came.
Mattie.
A FUNNY LITTLE GRANDMA.
Cradled on a rose-leaf
By her mother-miller,
In her tiny egg slept
Baby caterpillar,
Till the sunbeams coaxed her
From her cradle cosey,
To her pretty chamber,
Velvet soft and rosy.
Dew and honey drinking
As from fairy chalice,
A merry life she led
In that rosy palace.
Till at length she wove a
Bed of cotton-down,
Where she slept to waken,
Dressed in satin brown.
Once more in the sunshine,
Oh! how sweet to roam,
And on satin pinions
Seek her flowery home!
She had joined the noble
Family of millers,
And last I heard was grandmamma
To six small caterpillars.
Clara Broughton.