Rosy and Phil and Katy had a great frolic telling it. In the midst of it
Johnny exclaimed, "Don't you want to see Mammy Tittleback?"

"Indeed I do," I replied. So he ran out to the barn and brought her in
in his arms. Snowball was already there. She was lying on the hearth
when Mammy Tittleback was brought in, and I began to praise her, saying
what a beauty she was, and how handsome the yellow, black, and white
colors in her fur were. Snowball got up, and began to walk about
uneasily and to rub up against us, as if she wanted to be noticed also.

"Snowball's a nice cat too," said Phil, picking her up, "'most as good
as Mammy Tittleback."

"Blacky's the nicest," said Rosy, who was rocking in her rocking-chair,
and hugging Blacky up close to her face. "Blacky's the nicest of them
all." Upon which everybody fell to telling what a tyrant Blacky had
become; how she would be held in somebody's lap all the time, and that
even Aunt Hannah had had to give up to Blacky. Even Aunt Hannah, whom
nobody in the house, not even Grandma Jameson herself, ever thinks of
going against in the smallest thing, because she is such a beautiful and
venerable old lady,--even Aunt Hannah had had to give up to Blacky.

Aunt Hannah is over eighty years old but she is never idle. She never
has time to hold cats in her lap; and, besides, I do not think she loves
cats so well as the rest of her family do. As often as Blacky jumped up
in her lap, Aunt Hannah would very gently set her on the floor; but in
five minutes Blacky would be up again. At last, when she found Aunt
Hannah really would not hold her in her lap, she took it in her head to
lie in Aunt Hannah's work-basket, close by her side; and just as often
as Aunt Hannah put her out of her lap she would spring into the
work-basket, and curl herself up like a little puff-ball of fur among
the spools. This was even worse to Aunt Hannah than to have her on her
knees, and she would take her out of the work-basket less gently than
she lifted her out of her lap, and set her on the floor. Then Blacky
would jump right up on her lap again, and so they had it,--Aunt Hannah
and Blacky,--first lap, and then work-basket, till poor Aunt Hannah got
as nearly out of patience as a lovely old lady of the Society of
Friends ever allows herself to be. She got so out of patience that she
made a very nice, soft, round cushion stuffed with feathers, and kept it
always at hand for Blacky to lie on. Then when Blacky jump