r, and ran down the passage
beside them, until they disappeared in the drain in the street. This
delight over, she wandered into the garden. She was always on
excellent terms with all animals, and was treated by them with
singular confidence. Towie, the cat, had been missing for some time,
but now, to Beth's great joy, she suddenly appeared from Beth could
not tell where, purring loudly, and rubbing herself against Beth's
bare legs. The sun poured down upon them, and the sensation of the
cat's warm fur above her socks was delicious. Beth tried to lift her
up in her arms, but she wriggled herself out of them, and began to run
backwards and forwards between her and a gap in the hedge, until Beth
understood that she wished her to follow her through it into the next
garden. Beth did so, and the cat led her to a little warm nest where,
to Beth's wild delight, she showed her a tiny black kitten. Beth
picked it up, and carried it, followed by the cat, into the house in a
state of breathless excitement, shrieking out the news as she ran.
Beth was immediately seized upon. What was she doing at home when she
ought to have been at school? and without her hat, too! Beth had no
explanation to offer, and was hustled off to the nursery, and there
shut up for the rest of the day. She stood in the window most of the
time, a captive princess in the witch's palace, waiting for the
fairy-prince to release her, and catching flies.

The sky became overcast, and a big gun was fired. Beth's father had
something to do with the firing of big guns, and she connected this
with the gathering gloom, stories of God striking wicked people down
with thunder and lightning for their sins, and her own naughtiness,
and felt considerably awed. Presently a little boy was carried down
the street on a bed. His face looked yellow against the sheets. He
was lying flat on his back, and had a little black cap on, which was
right out of doors, but wrong in bed. He smiled up at Beth as they
carried him under the window, and she stretched out her arms to him
with infinite pity. She knew he was going to die. They all died, that
family, or had something dreadful happen to them. Jane Nettles said
there was a curse upon them, and Beth never thought of them without a
shudder. That boy's sisters both died, and one had something dreadful
happen to her, for they dug her up again, and when they opened the
coffin the corpse was all in a jelly, and every colour of the rainbow,