and the shortest's
the grey," said Dennis, with the calmness of fate.

Maisie gazed at the little yellow ends of hay sticking out between her
brother's stout red fingers, almost with terror. The old cat, with one
paw thrown languidly over the black kitten, watched the proceedings
carelessly.

"I'll have this one!" exclaimed Maisie desperately, tugging at the
middle piece.

"Hurrah!" cried Dennis, as he opened his hand, and he threw up his cap
exultingly; for it was the black kitten that was to live.

"I'm just as sorry as I was before about the others," said Maisie
wistfully; "but of course I _do_ like the black one best, and Madam
seems proud of it too. What shall we call it?"

"Nigger," said Dennis.

Maisie looked doubtful.

"That's not a very nice name," she said slowly. "I should like to call
it Jonah, because, you see, the lot fell upon it."

"Well, but, you silly thing," replied Dennis, "that just _wouldn't_ do,
because Jonah _was_ drowned when the lot fell upon him, and the black
kitten won't be."

"He wasn't _drowned_," said Maisie, in a low impressive voice.

"Well, worse. I'd rather have been drowned," said Dennis shortly;
"anyhow, I don't like the name of Jonah. It ought to have something to
do with its colour."

"Do you think," said Maisie, looking with pity at the white and grey
kittens, "that we need tell Tom to drown them _quite_ directly.
Mightn't we leave them till to-morrow, and hear what Aunt Katharine
says?"

"She won't say anything different," said Dennis, with a decided shake of
the head. "You know she made a rule. But we'll leave them if you
like."

Before the children left the loft, half an hour later, they took a
tender leave of Madam and her family, and Maisie gave an extra caress to
the white and grey kittens, which she felt sure she should never see
again. Nevertheless, at the bottom of her heart, there was a tiny hope
that she might be able to save them, for sometimes, even when she had
made a rule, Aunt Katharine was unexpectedly yielding.

Dennis and Maisie had lived with their aunt, Miss Katharine Chester,
since they had been babies. They had arrived one autumn day at
Fieldside, all the way from India, two little motherless, white-faced
things under the care of strangers, and from that time till now, when
Dennis was a square-shouldered boy of ten, and Maisie a sunburnt little
girl of eight, Aunt Katharine had been everything to them. Certainly
father was in