"Well, I will begin by telling the wee cousins about the family cat, Nelly Bly, and one of her kittens, Charlotte Corday. Kittens have some such cunning ways, you know, but Nelly Bly was one of the knowingest and best. She and her kitten were as much alike as two peas in a pod--jet-black, and with beautiful yellow-green eyes. Nelly Bly used to curl herself up to sleep in grandpa's fur cap, or sometimes in grandma's work-basket; and if she could do neither, she would find a friendly lap. One day poor pussy chose much too warm a place. Grandma had started up the kitchen fire, and was making preparations for dinner when she heard pussy mewing piteously--as she thought, in some other room. She went to the doors one by one to let pussy in, and no pussy appeared, but still she heard her mewing as if in pain. What could grandma do? She was neither down cellar nor up-stairs. She would look out-of-doors--but no--just then pussy screamed in an agony of pain. Grandma ran to the stove, opened the door, and pussy, as if shot out from a cannon's mouth, came flying past us--her back singed and her poor little paws all burned. I can't tell whether she learned the moral of that lesson or not, but I know she never was shut up in the oven again. "Yet not so very long after, when the old house was burned, Nelly Bly and Charlotte Corday found a sadder fate. Poor little kittens!--we spent hour after hour searching for their bones, but with small success, and then we buried them with choking sobs and eyes wet with childish tears. "Do not let me forget to tell you of Pembina and Flora, nor of the starry host that bedecked our barn-yard sky--every calf, however humble, was worthy of a name. There were our oxen, Dick and Darby, George and Jolly, and Leo and Scorpio, who used to weave along with stately swinging tread under their burden of hay. Then Spika and Denebola, Luna and Lyra--all worthy of honorable mention. Flora, gentle, but with an eye that terrified the little maid who sometimes milked her,--so, with wise forethought, a handful of salt was sometimes thrown into the bottom of her pail. You will hardly believe it, but she grew to be so fond of her pail that she found her way into the winter kitchen and anticipated her evening meal. How she ever got through two gates and two doors is a mystery still.