tch them, even
though she was left alone in the room with them.

I have seen her lying in the sun, blinking sleepily, and listening with
great pleasure to Dick's singing. Miss Laura even taught her not to hunt
the birds outside.

For a long time she had tried to get it into Malta's head that it was
cruel to catch the little sparrows that came about the door, and just
after I came, she succeeded in doing so.

Malta was so fond of Miss Laura, that whenever she caught a bird, she
came and laid it at her feet. Miss Laura always picked up the little,
dead creature, pitied it and stroked it, and scolded Malta till she
crept into a corner. Then Miss Laura put the bird on a limb of a tree,
and Malta watched her attentively from her corner.

One day Miss Laura stood at the window, looking out into the garden.
Malta was lying on the platform, staring at the sparrows that were
picking up crumbs from the ground. She trembled, and half rose every few
minutes, as if to go after them. Then she lay down again. She was trying
very hard not to creep on them. Presently a neighbor's cat came stealing
along the fence, keeping one eye on Malta and the other on the sparrows.
Malta was so angry! She sprang up and chased her away, and then came
back to the platform, where she lay down again and waited for the
sparrows to come back. For a long time she stayed there, and never once
tried to catch them.

Miss Laura was so pleased. She went to the door, and said, softly, "Come
here, Malta."

The cat put up her tail, and, meowing gently, came into the house. Miss
Laura took her up in her arms, and going down to the kitchen, asked Mary
to give her a saucer of her very sweetest milk for the best cat in the
United States of America.

Malta got great praise for this, and I never knew of her catching a bird
afterward. She was well fed in the house, and had no need to hurt such
harmless creatures.

She was very fond of her home, and never went far away, as Jim and I
did. Once, when Willie was going to spend a few weeks with a little
friend who lived fifty miles from Fairport, he took it into his head
that Malta should go with him. His mother told him that cats did not
like to go away from home; but he said he would be good to her, and
begged so hard to take her, that at last his mother consented.

He had been a few days in this place, when he wrote home to say that
Malta had run away. She had seemed very unhappy, and though he had kept
her wit