why did he deserve such a whipping as the little girl was giving him?

That is a question we must try to have answered. For my part I do not
believe he deserved it at all. Let us see what happened next. Just as
the little girl struck the last blow her Aunt Margaret came into the
room. Aunt Margaret stopped in the doorway, astonished.

"Why Flora," she said, as puss darted out of the room, "what are you
beating Griffin for?"

"What do you think he was doing?" cried Flora, her cheeks still flushed
with anger. "He was on the table just ready to spring at this beautiful
bird in my new hat. If I had not come he would have torn it to pieces."

"But he knew no better," said Aunt Margaret, "it is perfectly natural for
a cat to spring at a bird. Yes, and for him to kill it too, if he has
not been trained to do otherwise."

"But it would have made me feel dreadfully to have this beautiful bird
torn to bits. I really love it. Besides, it was killed long ago."

"Yes," said Aunt Margaret, "killed that you might wear it on a hat."

There was something in Aunt Margaret's voice which made Flora and the
little girls who were visiting her stand very still and look up.

"You say," continued Aunt Margaret very gently, "you say you love your
beautiful bird. That you would feel dreadfully if it were torn to bits.
How do you think its bird-mother felt when it was torn from her nest,
and she never saw it again?"

"Oh," said Flora, "I never thought of that before. I'm afraid,--I'm
afraid I'm more to blame than the cat."

DINAH'S NEW YEAR'S PRESENT.

Dinah Morris is a colored girl. She lives in the South. By South we mean
in the southern part of the United States.

Dinah is one of the most good-natured children that ever lived, but she
is very, very lazy. There is nothing she likes, or used to like, so much
as to curl up in some warm corner in the sun and do nothing.

Dinah's mother wished very much that her child should learn to read,
but the lady who tried to teach her soon gave it up. "It is no use," she
said, "Dinah will not learn. She is not a stupid child, but she is too
lazy for anything."

It happened, soon after this, that a young man from Massachusetts came
to the house where Dinah lived. He brought with him something no one
else in the neighborhood had ever seen before--a pair of roller-skates.

When Dinah saw the young man going rapidly up and down the piazza on
his skates she was so astonished she hardly knew