As time passed the adopted child became independent and needed no further guardianship, yet the friendliest relations existed between the two. Even after the chicken was grown and had chickens of her own they seldom met in their promenades about the place that Juno did not pause to rub her head affectionately against the neck of the orphan that she had brought up. * * * * * Juno was about a year older, I think, when there was a death in her family. The one little kitten that she loved with all her mother heart died and left her desolate. It was a very sad occasion, I remember, but we had a great funeral. We dug the grave at the end of the garden. Johnny's express wagon was the hearse, and Johnny drew it, and was very serious indeed. We borrowed Mrs. Martin's baby carriage, and that was the mourning coach. Juno rode in it, with Ned and Gimps walking one on each side and holding her in. I pushed the coach, while a long procession of the neighbors' children came behind, crying with all their might. We sung a hymn at the grave, and did everything we could to soothe Juno's grief. But Juno would not be reconciled. She drooped around and mewed so pitifully for several days that we could not endure it; so we went to a neighbor's cat that had more kittens than she needed, and borrowed one of them for Juno. Dear me, how proud she was of it, and how she took it in her arms and cuddled it up close to her! The whole family came out to look at her, and the Colonel said: "And this is only a cat! What great tenderness there should be in the human heart when a poor little animal can be like this!" And the next day Uncle Dick, who was a great favorite with all of us, rode up to the fence and shouted cheerily: "Hello, boys! Here is a present for you. I killed a mother fox at the mouth of her hole, and here is one of her babies." And he reached down into his pocket and drew out a baby fox about as large as an interrogation point, but the funniest and sharpest little thing you ever saw, though its eyes were not open yet. With one accord we shouted: "There's a baby for Juno!" and away we ran with it and laid it beside the new kitten. Juno arose and looked the little stranger over with evident anxiety. She seemed to be troubled with some haunting suspicion that this was not an orthodox cat. The bushy red tail was a special subject of curiosity. She touched it up with her paw and looked at it with her head on one side. For several dreadful minutes we were afraid that Juno was going to leave an orphan on our hands; but we did not know her, after all. In a few moments she reached the conclusion that the fox was probably a cat of some new and interesting kind, and she lay down again, purring softly, and took the little stranger to her heart.