A number of years ago, a gentleman, who was travelling through the eastern part of Germany, lost his way at nightfall, and at last found himself wandering through a large, dense forest. He walked his horse slowly for some hours among the trees, and finally, as he was getting very cold and tired, he thought he saw a light about a quarter of a mile away. He turned his steps toward it, for he hoped to find some peasant-cottage where he could pass the night, but, when he came nearer, he saw that the light was streaming through the windows of a ruined church. Looking over the sill of one of them, he saw a number of cats gathered round a small grave, into which four of them, crying bitterly, were lowering a little coffin with a crown and Grimalkin the Fifteenth engraved upon it. Instead of stopping to ask the way, the traveller jumped on his horse, and rode off, fortunately finding the right path at last. His friends had been expecting him for several hours, and, after they had given him a good dinner, and made him as comfortable as they could, they asked him why he was so late. “Well,” said the man, “I lost my way, and wandered for some hours without knowing where I was, and finally I did strike the right path by some great good luck. But, while I was lost, I saw the strangest sight I have ever seen in my life!” “What was it?” asked his hosts, eagerly. “Why,” the traveller began, “I saw more cats than I ever beheld in all my life before; every one sad and crying, as a coffin, with a crown and Grimalkin the Fifteenth marked upon it, was being lowered into the ground.” He had got no farther in his story than that, when the large black cat who had seemed to be asleep in front of the fire, leaped up and cried: “What! Grimalkin the Fifteenth dead! Then I’m the King of the Cats!” and springing up the chimney, he disappeared, and was never seen again! * * * * * “The reason he was never seen again,” Impty explained, “was because he went straight to Cat-Land, and people can’t go there, you know. That black cat was my grandfather, and he’d never hoped to be King so soon. But, you see, Grimalkin the Fifteenth lost all his nine lives at once, and so my grandfather succeeded to the throne immediately. Some day, perhaps, I’ll be King of the Cats, and if I ever am, I’ll make a new law so that you can come to Cat-Land just as you are without changing your shape. Wouldn’t that be nice? Good night!” THE NINTH NIGHT Dolly was sitting up in bed when Impty came purring in the next evening. She looked very happy, and she called out gayly to the black kitten: “Oh, Impty! Mother is coming home to-morrow! Miss Jane told me so when she was undressing me.”