Miss Harvey was reading aloud to Miss Winifred at the time. She had found that Sally was such a good kitten and stepped so daintily that she let her go wherever she liked. So she climbed from a chair to the piano and then gave a leap to the mantelpiece, and then she got up on top of the clock. She found it a comfortable seat, and it was fine to be so high up, for she could look down on the heads of dear Miss Harvey and Miss Winifred, who really wasn’t a bad sort, except for her feet that were always getting in one’s way. The room looked very different now she was so high up. This must be the way it looked to people, with the rug very far off and no one noticing the table legs. She was in no hurry to get down from her high perch, so she sat there a long time washing her face. ‘Look at Sally!’ said Miss Harvey. Miss Winifred put on her glasses. Just then a singular thing happened that gave Sally a scare. Something inside the clock went off. She had heard clocks strike before, of course, but never when she was so near. It was the loudest thing she had ever heard. ‘One, two, three’--by this time the frightened Sally was off the clock and on the mantelpiece, preparing to give a flying leap to the piano, but her curiosity overcame her fear, and she looked behind the clock to see if she could find out where the noise came from. ‘Four, five, six’--by this time she was on the piano again. Would the thing never stop? Had she set something going by being on top of it? ‘Seven, eight.’ That was all. She hoped she had not ruined it. But of one thing she was sure. She would never try to view the world again from the top of the parlor clock. [Illustration] CHAPTER VII THE CATNIP MOUSE There is a first time for everything, whether one is a little girl, or a boy, or a kitten. For a little girl, there is her first doll, and later her first pretty doll with real hair and blue eyes that will open and shut. For a boy there is his first ball, and his first set of marbles; but if you are a kitten, greater than all of these joys put together is the thrill that comes when you have your first catnip mouse. Oxford Gray, Junior, and Sally could measure their young lives by months instead of weeks before this exciting event occurred. They had heard there were such things, for there had been a tradition in the family of a glorious catnip mouse that had belonged to their ancestress, Martha Furbush-Tailby. But it is one thing to hear about a catnip mouse and quite another to have it for one’s very own plaything. Cool days and nights had come. It was the autumn, and all things furry were seeking snug quarters for the winter. The kittens were glad that they had their cozy kitchen to live in. Oxford Gray, Junior, however, sometimes went off on an excursion for hours, but Sally kept pretty closely to the house. And besides cats and kittens, there were others that sought winter quarters.