"'One of the miners has brought us some infant rabbits,' said Conchita, the second girl, hardly able to speak from ill-suppressed excitement. 'They are such babies, they can't feed themselves; do advise us. They will die if they are not fed soon.' A piece of rag dipped in milk seemed the only way out of the difficulty; the infants took to it at once. Indeed, they soon began to nibble at the milk in the saucer. This problem was evidently solved, but the weather was very cold, and they had doubtless been accustomed to a warm fur cloak about them. So Conchita said, 'Might she take them to bed with her?' [Illustration: CATS AND RABBITS. _From a Photo. by A. J. Johnson._] "'Take them in to Molly, and see if he will adopt them,' I suggested, not intending to be taken at my word; but Conchita thought it an excellent idea, and acted upon it at once. We all followed her. (I must explain here that Molly was an immense tom-cat, fat and amiable; he lived in the schoolroom in a wadded basket, which just fitted him comfortably.) 'He will eat them up at once, of course,' remarked one of the bystanders, 'and perhaps it is just as well that he should.' But he didn't. That excellent cat allowed the mites to be stuffed into his lap; they at once nestled down and Molly went off to sleep again. Some of us looked in later in the evening to see what had happened. That excellent cat was sitting up washing the rabbits! It was the funniest thing in the world: he evidently remembered his own nursery days, and was doing his duty according to his lights by his strange charges. When he came to the long ears he paused, evidently mildly surprised at the innovation, but those rabbits had a thorough licking before they finally retired to rest. This sort of thing went on for a fortnight, the rabbits feeding out of Molly's saucer of bread and milk with him regularly, though it soon had to be changed for a soup-plate, and a bigger bed had to be provided. At the end of the fortnight the rabbits began to take so much exercise that it was difficult to keep them in one room, and there were so many ferocious cats in the neighbourhood that Conchita decided that the rabbits must be provided with a hutch of their own, and so the pretty little comedy came to an end. It never seemed to have occurred to the amiable Molly that they were good to eat. We used to bring friends--scoffers and unbelievers, who went out converted--to that schoolroom, and if Molly, the conscientious foster-father, were sleepy and indisposed to show off, we used to put a little butter on the infants' backs. This never failed to wake him up and induce him to perform their toilet with much energy." [Illustration: CAT AND DUCKLINGS.]