Then I said, "Mir-row, you are a horrid nasty cat, and you don't deserve that you should get off breaking that Delhi Vase. But I will take the blame on myself--yes, I will--just to show you what it is to be noble. _I_ will go up-stairs and 'fess.'" So I said, "Get thee behind me, Mir-row!" as I ought to have done at first. Because Mir-row had always been so naughty that she tempted me to blame her for breaking it. If she had been a good cat, then such a thing would never have entered my head. But her character was against her. You see, I knew that I had only to say, "Mir-row did it," to get believed. Because she was always doing wicked things like that. Then I went up-stairs, running as hard as I could to get away from the wicked Mir-row, who was tempting me to tell a story. I ran to find Somebody to 'fess' to. And I found Somebody. And Somebody listened, and then rose up looking quite grave, but very kind. Oh, I was shaking ever so, till Somebody took me in such nice strong arms, and said that as I had come at once, and had not even thought of trying to escape the blame or to put it on anybody else, I should not be punished--though it certainly _was_ a great, great pity. But I never told about Mir-row, or how nearly it had happened otherwise. And as for Mir-row, she said nothing either. She just curled herself up on the carpet among the broken pieces of the vase, and when we went down was peacefully dreaming of catching mice. I knew she was by the way she had of thrusting out her claws and pulling them in again. No, Mir-row did not deserve all that I had done for her. But, after all, honesty is a better policy than blaming things on Mir-row. This is the story of my first temptation, and how I was saved from the wickedness of Mir-row. II PURPLE "THINKS" _June again. Aged ten. Afternoon of the Day when the first Strawberry was Half-ripe._ It will never be whole-ripe, owing to an accident which happened to it. However, none of the Grown-ups knew except Sandy the gardener, and he only tells us not to. But we don't really mind. Which makes me wonder sometimes if Grown-ups have a world of their own, same as us Children. I don't think so. If they had, they wouldn't always be writing and reading, or paying calls and sitting on chairs, and looking Nim-Pim-Pimmany! They can't really have good times all by themselves, same as us. What do you think? I suppose it is account-books, and postmen, and having to understand the sermon that makes them look like that. But at any rate they have not an idea that children really are thinking--nor how much they know. Perhaps that is just as well. For, as they say about the monkeys, if they only knew how we talk among ourselves, they might set us to work. At least they would not be so ready to believe in us when next they saw us with our "behaving faces" on.