e
kettle gossiping deliciously to itself; there was at once something
comfortable and homelike about it; especially as the red curtains were
drawn across the two windows that look down into High Street, and the
great carts that had been rumbling underneath them since daybreak had
given place to the jolting of lighter vehicles which passed and
repassed at intervals.

The room was large, though a little low, and was plainly but
comfortably furnished; an old-fashioned crimson couch stood in one
corner; some stained book-shelves contained a few well-bound books;
and one or two simple engravings in cheap frames adorned the wall. In
spite of the simplicity of the whole there were evidences of refined
taste--there were growing ferns in tall baskets; some red leaves and
autumn berries arranged in old china vases; a beautiful head of
Clytie, though it was only in plaster of Paris, on the mantel-piece.
The pretty tea service on the round table was only white china,
hand-painted; and some more red leaves with dark chrysanthemums were
tastefully arranged in a low wicker-basket in the center.

One glance would have convinced even a stranger that this room was
inhabited by people of cultured taste and small means; and it was so
pleasant, so home-like, so warm with ruddy fire-light, that grander
rooms would have looked comfortless in comparison. There were only two
people in it on this November evening--a girl lying back in a
rocking-chair, with her eyes fixed thoughtfully on the dancing flames,
and a child of ten, though looking two or three years younger, sitting
on a stool before the fire, with a black kitten asleep on her lap, and
her arms clasped round her knees.

An odd, weird sort of child, with a head running over with little dark
curls, and large wondering eyes--not an ordinary child, and certainly
not a pretty one, and looking, at the present moment, with her
wrinkled eyebrows and huddled-up figure, like a little old witch in a
fairy tale.

"I am that tired," observed the child, apparently apostrophising the
kettle, "that not all the monkeys in the Zooelogical Gardens could make
me laugh; no, not if they had the old father baboon as their head. I
wish I were a jaguar!"

"Why, Fluff?" exclaimed a pleasant voice from the rocking-chair. "Why,
Fluff?"

"I wish I were a jaguar," repeated the child, defiantly; "not a bison,
because of its hump, nor a camel either. Why, those great spotted cats
had their balls to amuse the