Mr Ffolliot succumbed. He went round to his youngest daughter and lifted her out of her high chair, only to put her down with exceeding haste a moment later. "The child is all over some horrible sticky substance," he cried, irritably. "'At was it," said the Kitten. Mr Ffolliot fled to wash his hands and change his coat. Nana and Thirza sat down again. Ger shook his head at his small sister. "You _are_ a rotter," he said, sadly. The Kitten began to cry again, but this time she cried quite softly, and Nana, in spite of the libations of golden syrup, took her upon her knee to comfort her. Every evening the children went down to the hall to play with their mother, and when their grandparents were there things were more than usually festive. Ganpie never seemed to mind how many children swarmed over him--in fact, he rather seemed to like it; and Grannie assuredly knew more entrancing games than anyone else in the world. One Christmas Eve, just after tea, the whole family, including Mr Ffolliot, were gathered in the hall. Fusby had just taken the tray, the General was sitting by the fire with Ger on his knee, the Kitten sat on the opposite side of the hearth on her father's, while the rest of the young people indulged in surreptitious "ragging." Uz and Buz, by some mischance, charged into a heavy oaken post crowned by a large palm, with such force that they knocked it over, and the big flower-pot missed their grandfather and Ger by a hair's breadth. When the universal consternation had subsided, the scattered earth been swept up, and the twins had been suitably reprimanded, the Kitten scrambled down from her father's knee, and trotted across to her grandmother, was duly taken up, and with small insistant hand turned her Grannie's face towards her. "Which would you rather?" she asked in her high clear voice, "that Ganpie had been killed or Ger?" Mrs Grantly shuddered--"Baby, don't suggest such dreadful things," she exclaimed. "But which would you rather?" the Kitten persisted. "You're all saying 'another inch and it would have killed one of zem'--which one would you rather?" But Mrs Grantly flatly refused to state her preference, and the Kitten was clearly disappointed. That night she added an additional clause to her prayers: "Thank you, God dear, for not letting the flower-pot kill Ganpie or Ger, and I'm sure Grannie's very much obliged too." At her prayers the Kitten always knelt bolt upright with her hands tightly clasped under her chin, her nightgown draped in graceful folds about her--a most reverent and saintly little figure, except that she had from the very first firmly refused to shut her eyes.