A week after that Auntie May did not come down to breakfast, and Mary looked fussy and important as if something had happened, and a certain great carriage came and stood at our door, which mother said was a doctor's carriage. We heard Mary and the cook talking about it. 'It's measles, sure enough,' said Mary. 'Mrs. Curtis's little boy, t'other side of the square, died of it last week. It is all over. You and me'll go next, cook, sure as eggs is eggs.' 'Eggs is often egg powder,' said the cook severely. 'You just sit still and don't go to meet misfortune half-way. More work and less talk, I say.' We told the black cat that he was little better than a murderer, bringing measles in and giving them to our dear Auntie May, and we made him so uncomfortable that he left. I don't suppose he would starve or anything, for he had collected enough strength with us to last him through the winter, and make him fit to catch as many birds as he could eat. Besides, I don't think he was going to live long anyhow. To my certain knowledge he had licked up a whole tube of madder-lake, and swallowed the cork of a bottle of quick-drying copal. Mary was not a good cat-maid, though she had acquired what Auntie May called the cat-tread. She had learned to walk carefully, shovelling her feet along the floor so as to avoid treading on kittens. Of course, now that we were older, we oozed away ourselves, and were too proud to call out if a paw got caught, or so on. Then an awful thing happened, and while Auntie May was ill too. Perhaps if Auntie May hadn't been ill it would never have happened. Zobeide went and lost herself. We all went out now and then, though it wasn't approved of unless Auntie May took us herself, and that was all right; it was going alone that was wrong. Whenever we were missed there was a fine hue and cry, and Auntie May used to run out without her boots, or her hat, or her jacket, and hunt the garden. When she had done this in vain, she used to go out in the street and walk all round the fronts of the houses to see if she could see a bit of grey cat sticking out anywhere. She got _me_ that way once. I was sitting on the outside wall looking inwards and my tail hung down into the street. She came along and took hold, and wow! but I had to come down backwards along with it! I felt as if it were being pulled out by the roots, and that all resistance was vain and painful as well. So I was amenable to persuasion, if you can call anything so rough as that persuasion.