Ay—and that ain’t all. I make a picture of what might have been. I sees him grown into a young man—a handsome, smart young officer—and make a picture of some beautiful young girl, and tells myself what a pretty love story they would have had betwixt them, and what a lover, and what a young husband he would have been! Why, there’s been nights when I’ve even seen little children like him, and thought they would have been fond of me, as he was. It’s made me forget where I was, and when I’d be roused up by something or other I’ve found myself choke up with something as might almost have been my heart in my throat, to think as it were only a sort of dream after all. And the captain’s youngest lies out under the stars in the churchyard, the wind a-blowing over the snow as lies on a grave as is only the grave of a child. LITTLE BETTY’S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY LITTLE BETTY’S KITTEN TELLS HER STORY I am Betty’s kitten—at least, I was Betty’s kitten once. That was more than a year ago. I am not a kitten now, I am a little cat, and I have grown serious, and think a great deal as I sit on the hearthrug, looking at the fire and blinking my eyes. I have so much to think about that I even stop to ponder things over when I am lapping my milk or washing my face. I am very careful about lapping my milk. I never upset the saucer. Betty told me I must not. She used to talk to me about it when she gave me my dinner. She said that only untidy kittens were careless. She liked to see me wash my face too, so I am particular about that. It is always Betty I am thinking about when I sit on the rug and blink at the fire. Sometimes I feel so puzzled and so anxious that if her mamma or papa are sitting near I look up at them and say: “Mee-_aiow_? _Mee_-aiow?” But they do not seem to understand me as Betty did. Perhaps that is because they are grown-up people and she was a little girl. But one day her mamma said: “It sounds almost as if she were asking a question.” I was asking a question. I was asking about Betty. I wanted to know when she was coming back. I know where she came from, but I do not know where she is gone, or why she went. She usually told me things, but she did not tell me that. I never knew her to go away before. I wish she had taken me with her. I would have kept my face and paws very clean, and never have upset my milk. I said I knew where she came from. She came from behind the white rose-bush before it began to bloom, and when it had nothing but glossy green leaves and tight little buds on it.