"Yes; their grandfather gave each of the boys one of his pets. He said that they would be company for them on the way home, and would help divert their thoughts from their great loss. They grieved so, poor little lads." That softened Miss Patricia again, and she said nothing more about our being pests. But when she passed me she drew her skirts aside as if she could not bear to so much as brush against me, and from that hour it has been war to the knife between us. Matches and I were given a little room up in the attic under the eaves, but at first we were rarely there during the day. The boys took us with them wherever they went. We had been there some time before we were left alone long enough for me to do any exploring. It was almost dark when that first chance came. I prowled around the attic awhile. Then I climbed out of the window and swung down by the vines that covered that side of the house, to the shutters of the room below. It happened to be Miss Patricia's room. As I perched on the top of the shutters, leaning over and craning my neck, I could see Miss Patricia sitting there in the dusk beside her open window. Her hands were folded in her lap, and she was rocking gently back and forth in a high-backed rocking-chair, with her eyes closed. I thought it would be a good chance for me to take a peep into her room, so I ventured to swing over and drop down on the window-sill beside her, on all fours. I did it very quietly, so quietly, in fact, that I do not see how she could possibly have been disturbed; yet I give you my word, Ring-tail, that woman shrieked until you could have heard her half a mile. I never was so terrified in all my life. It paralysed me for an instant, and then I sprang up by the vines to the lightning-rod, and streaked up it faster than any lightning ever came down. Once in my room, I shook all the rest of the evening. [Illustration] Matches said that Miss Patricia was probably worse scared than I was, but that's impossible. I never made a sound, and as for her--why, even the cook came running when Miss Patricia began to shriek, and she was in the coal-cellar at the time, and is deaf in one ear. But Matches always disagreed with me in everything, and I was not sorry when we parted company. I'd better tell you about that next. It happened in this way. Stuart came into the room one day with Sim Williams, one of the boys who was always swarming up the stairs to see us. Sim was older than Stuart, and one of those restless, inquiring boys, never satisfied with letting well enough alone. He was always making experiments. This time he wanted to experiment on me with a handful of tobacco,--coax me to eat it, you know, and see what effect it would have. But Stuart objected. He was afraid it might make me