leaves; the magpie making a prodigious chattering, and declaring that
a tremendous storm was coming on, flew down from the bough; and,
whispering the cat not to mind what the owl said--'a stupid old
bird!'--she presently hid herself, very snug, in a hollow place in the
trunk: not very sorry, to say the truth, to break up the conversation.
The owl very deliberately nestled himself in a thick bush of ivy that
grew near, and the cat ran into the cottage, to sit by the fire and
reflect; for between her two friends, her mind was a little perplexed.

The old woman shut the cottage door, heaped some dry fir-logs on the
fire, and sate down to her spinning-wheel. The rain pelted against the
shutters, the wind howled in the tree-tops, and roared loudly in the
forest behind the hut; it was a terrible night out of doors, but
within the cottage it was snug enough,--the fire was blazing merrily,
the old woman's wheel turned briskly round, the kettle was singing a
low quiet song to itself beside the crackling logs, and the cat was
sitting on the hearth, looking warm and comfortable. But I am afraid
she was not at all comfortable--in her mind; for discontented people
seldom are. It never entered her head to consider whether there were
any poor cats abroad that night, without a shelter over them; for
grumblers are always selfish, and never think of the wants of others.
In fact, she could think of nothing, just at that time, but the
luxuries enjoyed by the fortunate cats who might happen to be born in
grand palaces; so, curled up in the warmest corner of the hearth, she
sate watching the little spouts of flame that kept flashing up from
the pine logs, and wishing, for the hundredth time that day, that she
had had the good luck to be a palace cat. Presently a very strange
thing happened to her.

All of a sudden she felt something very lightly touch her coat; and
looking round, there stood, close by her, the most beautiful little
thing that anybody ever dreamt of. She was not many inches high; her
robe seemed made of gold and silver threads, fine as gossamer, woven
together: on her head she wore a circlet of diamonds, so small and
bright, that they looked like sparks of fire, and in her tiny hand she
bore a long and very slight silver wand--it was more like a very,
_very_ fine knitting-pin than anything else.

The cat looked at her with unutterable astonishment: it was very odd
that the old woman did not seem to see her at all.

The be