to play with their
mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than
usually festive. Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed
over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly
knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world.

One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr
Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray,
the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten
sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest
of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz,
by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large
palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot
missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth.

When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been
swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten
scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her
grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned
her Grannie's face towards her.

"Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that
Ganpie had been killed or Ger?"

Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she
exclaimed.

"But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted. "You're all saying
'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you
rather?"

But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten
was clearly disappointed.

That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you,
God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm
sure Grannie's very much obliged too."

At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands
tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds
about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she
had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.

She was fond of adding a sort of P.S. to her regular prayers, and
enjoyed its effect upon her mother, who made a point of, herself,
attending the orisons of her two youngest children. One evening when
Mrs Ffolliot had been reading her a rather pathetic story of a
motherless child, the Kitten added this petition, "Please, God, take
care of all the little girls wiv no mummies."

Mrs Ffolliot was touched and related the story afterw