For a moment I thought of running away altogether. It was not fear of being punished. No, if it had only been that, I should not have minded. At least not much. Punishments don't last long up at our house. But now I should never see the uncle from India, nor the elephant being unpacked end-foremost out of the cattle truck, nor the crimson carpet, nor the howdah, nor any of these fine things. Or even if I did I might be stamped to death by the elephant, after all. Oh, I _was_ unhappy. I looked in the glass and, I declare, I hardly knew the white, frightened, peeky face I saw there for my own. You see, I usually see my own face when my hair is being done, or when the soap is just washed off. Then it is shiny and red; but now, in the dusk of the room, it looked very small and pale, and my eyes very big and black, with rims round them. Now our cat was there, and the thought came of itself that everything might be blamed on her. She was our only _not-nice_ pussy, and if I said it was Mir-row who did it, nobody would be the worse. She was always knocking things down anyway. She would only get chased out, and she was always being chased out. So one extra time would not matter to Mir-row. Well, I suppose that is what the ministers and grown-up people call temptation--when you think you can do a thing so as not to be found out. When you do a thing and don't care whether you are found out or not--that is different. That's like Sir Toady (he's my brother, as you shall hear) when he goes bird-nesting and has to watch out for the keeper. But he doesn't really care if he _is_ catched. But the Delhi Vase! Oh, it seemed as if I never could be happy again in this world! I knew--I mean at the time--that I should have prayed. I had been often and often told that I ought. Still, you can't just always pray when you ought to. However, I did manage to kneel down and grab hold of Mir-row. I knew that Mir-row was a bad cat, and did all sorts of things she ought not to do. So I took her to the place where the Delhi Vase had been broken, and asked her if she minded. And she said as plain as possible that she did not care a bit. I should get whipped, that was all, and she would be glad. She was a hard-hearted Thing. For I was in dreadful trouble. But for all that Mir-row would not take a bit of the blame. And she might just as easily, seeing the number of tit-bits I had brought out for her. But cats have no gratitude--at least Mir-row had none. However, I think she must have been a foreign cat, because she could not even pronounce "_Mee-ow_" properly. And that is the reason why her name was "Mir-row." She said so herself. So I said to her, "You, Mir-row, will you come up-stairs and 'fess'?" And Mir-row said just "_Fsssst-Mir-row!_" to show that she was cross.