After a while it moved a little, to see if Kittykin was really asleep. Kittykin did not stir. Her eyes were fast shut, and the mouse seemed satisfied; so, after waiting a bit, it made a little dash toward the bureau. In a single bound Kittykin was right over it, and had laid her white paw on it. She did not, however, appear to intend it any injury, but began to play with it just as Evelyn would have liked to do; and, lying down, she rolled over and over, holding it up and tossing it gently, quite as Evelyn sometimes did her, or patting it and admiring it as if it had been the sweetest little mouse in the world. The mouse, too, appeared not to mind it the least bit; and Evelyn was just thinking how nice it was that Kittykin and it had become such friends, and was planning nice games with them, when there was a faint little squeak, and she saw Kittykin, who had just been petting the little creature, suddenly drive her sharp white teeth into its neck. Evelyn rushed at her. “Oh, you wicked Kittykin! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” she cried, catching her up by the tail and shaking her well, as the best way to punish her. Just then her mamma entered. “Oh, Evelyn, why are you treating kitty so?” she asked. “Because she’s so mean,” said Evelyn, severely. “She’s a murderer.” Her mamma tried to explain that killing the mouse was Kittykin’s nature; but Evelyn could not see that this made it any the less painful, and she was quite cool to Kittykin for some time. The little mouse was buried that evening in a matchbox under a rose-bush in the garden; and Kittykin, in a black rag which was tied around her as a dress, was compelled, evidently much against her will, to do penance by acting as chief mourner. II.