in hand, though he had a round of twenty miles to make
among his patients before night; and Aunt Susan, who was on a visit,
stood peering through her spectacles, too much absorbed to notice black
Dinah taking a nap in her work-basket and the kitten making sad havoc
with her knitting. Josh was called in from the wood-shed, and, with his
hat on the back of his head and hands deep in his pockets, gazed in
silence.

"'Wal,' he said at length, 'if that don't beat all natur'! Look at the
size of that crittur, will you, and the hole he's jest crawled out of.
Why, he's as big as a full-grown bat, measures full seven inches across
from wing to wing. Wal, now, I'd gin consider'ble to know what's be'n
goin' on for a spell back in that leetle house where he's passed his
time; and I'll bet, Doctor, with all your larnin', _you_ can't tell.'"

CHAPTER V.

FURRY-PURRY BECOMING GOLD ELSIE.

Miss Ruth found on her table the next Wednesday afternoon a note very
neatly and carefully written, which read as follows:--

Miss RUTH,--Will you Please tell us Another Cat Story, becaus I
like them best. So does Fannie Eldridge she said So after You told
Worm stories.

Miss Ruth I Have Named my Black Kitty After your Dinah Diamond, her
Last Name has to Be Spot Becaus her Spot is not a Diamond, this is
from your Friend.

NELLIE DIMOCK.

"I hold in my hand," Miss Ruth said, when she had carefully perused this
epistle, "a written request from two members of our Society for another
cat story. Susie and Mollie, have I any more cat stories worth telling?"

"Yes, indeed, Auntie" said Mollie. "Don't you remember the pretty fairy
story you used to tell us about the good little girl who saved a cat
from being drowned by some bad boys, and carried her home? and she
turned out to be a fairy cat and gave that girl every thing she wished
for--cakes and candy, and a lovely pink silk frock packed in a nutshell
for her to wear to the party?"

"O Mollie! that's too much of a baby story," said Susie. "Tell us about
the musical cat who played the piano by walking over the keys, and all
the people in the house thought it was a ghost."

"Yes, Auntie; and the funny story of the cat and the parrot--how the
parrot got stuck up to her knees in a pan of dough, and in her fright
said over every thing she had learned to say: 'Polly wants a cracker!'
'Oh, my goodness' sakes alive!' 'Get out, I say!' 'Here's a row!' 'Scat,