greater than it had ever been before, though it had already been very great.

But one day, oh joyful day! my unhappiness came to an end, oh joyful end! I will tell how this happened. The ground was covered with snow, slosh and mud. I had been running hither and thither, under barns, in coal cellars, and in other places trying to catch something, but having had the misfortune, as I have already told your ladyship, the misfortune of being born short-clawed, I had caught nothing. Begrimed with dirt, hungry, cold, forlorn, I was on my way to my jumping spot. This was the corner of a wall near a back door. It was also near to some bushes and trees all snugly fenced in, and under these I had often hidden myself and tried to clean my fur and watched for the back door to open. I called it my jumping spot because sometimes I jumped from that spot and got in at the back door and snatched a bit from the plate of the cat which belonged to the house. Sometimes a kind maiden had thrown me scraps from one of the windows.

Now just as I was to jump from my jumping spot I saw this kind maiden coming down the steps. She had her pet kitten in her arms and was tending it with care. 'Oh pet kitten! pet kitten!' I mewed to it. 'How little you know the unhappiness of a cat without a home!' Mewing this, I hung my tail and was slinking out of sight when I heard these words. 'Puss! Puss! Pussy! Pussy! Puss!' How I wished I could think they were spoken to me! 'Pussy! Poor Pussy! Here Pussy!' I turned my head, but kept moving. 'Pussy! Pussy! Pussy! Puss! Poor Pussy! Pussy! Pussy! Here Pussy! Poor Pussy!' I stopped. 'Pussy! Here Pussy! come Pussy!' Yes! they were—they were spoken to me! She was looking at me! 'Good old Pussy! come here, good old Pussy!'

She held out her hand. I dared not go. She went in and placed a saucer of milk on the kitchen hearth, called me and left the door open, and went to another room. I crept in to the hearth, and lapped, lapped, lapped, oh how I did lap! No tongue can tell the sweetness of that milk. As soon as I had eaten the milk I examined the things in the room, then I rolled over and over on the door mat to get the coal dust off, then I sat on the hearth and licked myself clean. The cook came in and shook the broom at me and cried: 'Scat! Scat!' Just then the kind maiden showed her face at the door. 'Here's a strange cat!' the cook said to her. 'We don't want another cat!' 'Why! how white and clean she has made herself,' said the maiden. 'She is a neat cat. I have often seen her cleaning herself out under the bushes. I mean to keep her. She is just the cat for poor Ellen.' I went and rubbed against her 

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