Earnest, "after
that he was sent to the penitentiary for life, and everybody said
'Good enough!' 'Served him right, nasty, mean, horrid old thing!'" and
away she went, slamming the front door behind her.

The bang of the door, and still more the unusual sound of Mr.
Earnest's laughter, brought the little wife to the spot.

"We had a bully story!" Master Jim explained. "There wasn't any
fighting in it, but a big old cat got caught in a trap, and he was
hung and quartered up."

"Jim!" said his mother. "Do stop! I don't like such stories. What
could Nannie have been thinking of?"

If she had dared she would have added: "I don't see how anybody could
have laughed over that."

But perhaps she was checked by a look on Mr. Earnest's face. He was
not laughing now; neither was he scowling; he looked very grave.

"Jennie," he said, "come here, dear," and with a quick, unaccustomed
flutter of her heart she went to him. "I've been a brute--a cowardly
brute, but I'm sorry, and I want to do better. Will you forgive me?
And if I behave like a man in future do you think you can go back to
the old love, dear?"

The children had run out to see if Nannie had left them, and the room
was very still; no sound but the ticking of the clock, and once in
awhile a deep sob that would not be crushed back.

Great events turn on small pivots ofttimes, and so it happened that
there were some changes in that little house after this.

Curiously enough, not long after Nannie's story a great tortoise-shell
tomcat appeared in the Earnest home. No one thought of asking Mrs.
Earnest if she had brought him there, and the others knew nothing
about him. More curiously still, when Mr. Earnest began to grow sulky
or ugly, Sir Tortoise Shell would often walk into the room and glare
at him with his big, ugly eyes.

"Jennie, I believe I'll shoot that cat!" he exclaimed one day. "I
can't bear him!"

"Oh, no, I couldn't let you hurt him, Gerald," said Mrs. Earnest, who
had become quite a spirited little woman in the new and happy
atmosphere she breathed now. "I'm so fond of him."

She looked demure enough as she stooped to pet the cat, but really her
eyes were sparkling with mischief, for truth to tell, she had heard
Nannie's story and was ready to adopt a big yellow cat as her coat of
arms.

Mr. Earnest strolled out on to the gallery. He too was thinking of
that story.

"I could have stood the trouncing," he said to himself, "and the
hanging, and