"Wasn't anything else done to him?" asked Jim in a rather disappointed tone. "Yes," said Nannie, glaring at Mr. Earnest in a fierce, defiant manner. "Oh, that's enough to do to him," pleaded little Mamie. "No, it isn't," said Jim. "He ate up the rabbits." "Maybe he didn't eat the rabbits," urged tender-hearted Mamie. "No, he didn't eat the rabbits. A weasel did that," said Nannie, her awful gaze still fixed on Mr. Earnest's laughing eyes. "But he had been ugly to his family, and that's the worst, the meanest thing a man--a cat can do, and Providence caught him in a trap to punish him." "What else was done to him?" persisted Jim. "He was hung," said Nannie, and she almost smacked her lips with savage relish. "Oh!" said Jim, and he condescended to enter the parlor and plant himself in front of Nannie. "Then what else was done with him?" reiterated this young avenging fury. "I don't like this story," said Mamie. "I do!" said Jim. "It's most bester than Indians." Nannie was going to say that was all, but just then she caught sight of those mocking eyes again, and in a sudden fury she added: "He was drawn and quartered." "Oh!" gasped Jim, while Mamie began to weep. Just then a roar of laughter ensued from behind the newspaper, and Nannie, whose every nerve was taut, leaped from her chair. The newspaper fell, and the two chief actors in this drama confronted one another, one of them convulsed with laughter and the other with flashing, defiant eyes and tightly pursed mouth. "And after that--" urged Jim. "Go on, Miss Nannie. Oh, this is a bully story! It's bestest than Indians!" "After that," said Nannie, turning squarely on Mr. Earnest, "after that he was sent to the penitentiary for life, and everybody said 'Good enough!' 'Served him right, nasty, mean, horrid old thing!'" and away she went, slamming the front door behind her. The bang of the door, and still more the unusual sound of Mr. Earnest's laughter, brought the little wife to the spot. "We had a bully story!" Master Jim explained. "There wasn't any fighting in it, but a big old cat got caught in a trap, and he was hung and quartered up." "Jim!" said his mother. "Do stop! I don't like such stories. What could Nannie have been thinking of?" If she had dared she would have added: "I don't see how anybody could have laughed over that." But perhaps she was checked by a look on Mr. Earnest's face. He was not laughing now; neither was he scowling; he looked very grave. "Jennie," he said, "come here, dear," and with a quick, unaccustomed flutter of her heart she went to him. "I've been a brute--a cowardly brute, but I'm sorry, and I want to do better. Will you forgive me? And if I behave like a man in future do you think you can go back to the old love, dear?" The children had run out to see if Nannie had left them, and the room was very still; no sound but the ticking of the clock, and once in awhile a deep sob that would not be crushed back.