of the lack of damask roses in her cheeks, she seemed a
healthy child, and certainly showed great capacity of energetic movement
in the impulsive capers with which she welcomed her venerable
progenitor. She shouted out her satisfaction, moreover, (as her custom
was, having never had any over-sensitive auditors about her to tame down
her voice,) till even the Doctor's dull ears were full of the clamor.

"Pansie, darling," said Dr. Dolliver cheerily, patting her brown hair
with his tremulous fingers, "thou hast put some of thine own friskiness
into poor old grandfather, this fine morning! Dost know, child, that he
came near breaking his neck down-stairs at the sound of thy voice? What
wouldst thou have done then, little Pansie?"

"Kiss poor grandpapa and make him well!" answered the child, remembering
the Doctor's own mode of cure in similar mishaps to herself. "It shall
do poor grandpapa good!" she added, putting up her mouth to apply the
remedy.

"Ah, little one, thou hast greater faith in thy medicines than ever I
had in my drugs," replied the patriarch with a giggle, surprised and
delighted at his own readiness of response. "But the kiss is good for my
feeble old heart, Pansie, though it might do little to mend a broken
neck; so give grandpapa another dose, and let us to breakfast."

In this merry humor they sat down to the table, great-grandpapa and
Pansie side by side, and the kitten, as soon appeared, making a third in
the party. First, she showed her mottled head out of Pansie's lap,
delicately sipping milk from the child's basin without rebuke; then she
took post on the old gentleman's shoulder, purring like a
spinning-wheel, trying her claws in the wadding of his dressing-gown,
and still more impressively reminding him of her presence by putting out
a paw to intercept a warmed-over morsel of yesterday's chicken on its
way to the Doctor's mouth. After skilfully achieving this feat, she
scrambled down upon the breakfast-table and began to wash her face and
hands. Evidently, these companions were all three on intimate terms, as
was natural enough, since a great many childish impulses were softly
creeping back on the simple-minded old man; insomuch that, if no worldly
necessities nor painful infirmity had disturbed him, his remnant of life
might have been as cheaply and cheerily enjoyed as the early playtime of
the kitten and the child. Old Dr. Dolliver and his great-grand-daughter
(a ponderous title, which seeme