11. Cats, you know, will play with mice before they kill them; but owls seem to have more mercy. They do not play with mice, but kill them at once, and eat them. This owl, then, could not bear to see his friend the kitten play with a living mouse, but killed it at once. But he did not take it In that you see the away from the kitten. owl was just. 12. There are boys and girls, I am sorry to say, that have not the justice of an owl. Sometimes when two of them are together, and one of them has a plaything, the other will want to take it away and not give it back. Then they quarrel and fight about it like little tigers; and then we begin to think that our dear, sweet little children are sometimes not so kind as they should be of romps with the ball of worsted which Alice had been trying to wind up. 2. She had been rolling it up and down till it had all come undone again. And there it was, spread all over the hearth-rug, with the kitten running after its own tail. 66 3. O, you naughty, naughty little thing!" cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and giving it a kiss. "Really, Mother Puss ought to have taught you better manners!" 4. Then she jumped back into the armchair, taking the kitten and the worsted with her, and began winding up the ball again. Kitty sat on her knee trying to look very good, and watching the winding. Now and then it put out one paw and gently touched the ball, as if it would like to help. 5 Then Alice wound two or three turns of the worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look. But Kitty jumped up, and the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards and yards of it got unwound. 6. "Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' said Alice, "when I saw all the mischief you had been doing, that I was very near opening the window and putting you out into the snow? It would have served you right, you little playful darling! 7. "Now I am going to tell you all your faults. Number One. You squeaked twice while Mother Puss was washing your face to-day. You can't deny it, Kitty. Don't tell me that her paw went into your eye! That was your fault for keeping your eyes open. "Number two. You pulled Snow-drop away by the tail, just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her. What! you were thirsty, were you? How do you know she was not thirsty too? 8. 9. "Now for Number Three. You unwound every bit of the worsted while I was not looking. That's three faults, Kitty, and you have not been punished for any of them yet. You know I have been saving up all your punishments for next Wednesday. 10. " Suppose they had saved up all my punishments, what would they do at the end of the year? Should I be sent to prison, when the day came, or should I have to go without fifty dinners at once?" |