"'Dear me! That makes 1000 gloves! four times as many gloves as kittens! It's very kind of Maggie, but why did she send so many gloves? for I haven't got 1000 _hands_, you know, Mrs. Dyer.' "And Mrs. Dyer said, 'No, indeed, you're 998 hands short of that!' "However the next day I made out what to do, and I took the basket with me and walked off to the parish school--the _girl's_ school, you know--and I said to the mistress, 'How many little girls are there at school to-day?' "'Exactly 250, sir.' "'And have they all been _very_ good all day?' "'As good as gold, sir.' "So I waited outside the door with my basket, and as each little girl came out, I just popped a soft little kitten into her hands! Oh, what joy there was! The little girls went all dancing home, nursing their kittens, and the whole air was full of purring! Then, the next morning, I went to the school, before it opened, to ask the little girls how the kittens had behaved in the night. And they all arrived sobbing and crying, and their faces and hands were all covered with scratches, and they had the kittens wrapped up in their pinafores to keep them from scratching any more. And they sobbed out, 'The kittens have been scratching us all night, all the night.' "So then I said to myself, 'What a nice little girl Maggie is. _Now_ I see why she sent all those gloves, and why there are four times as many gloves as kittens!' and I said loud to the little girls, 'Never mind, my dear children, do your lessons _very_ nicely, and don't cry any more, and when school is over, you'll find me at the door, and you shall see what you shall see!' "So, in the evening, when the little girls came running out, with the kittens still wrapped up in their pinafores, there was I, at the door, with a big sack! And, as each little girl came out, I just popped into her hand two pairs of gloves! And each little girl unrolled her pinafore and took out an angry little kitten, spitting and snarling, with its claws sticking out like a hedgehog. But it hadn't time to scratch, for, in one moment, it found all its four claws popped into nice soft warm gloves! And then the kittens got quite sweet-tempered and gentle, and began purring again!