, pale-brown bird, fluttering among the bushes,
interested her; but it was some time before she could catch fair
sight of it. "A dear little wren!" she said. "It must have its nest
about here." She sought it, knowing its beautifully woven house, with
one hole, through which the bird passes to feed a numerous progeny,
and expected to find it amid the tangle of traveller's-joy which
covered an old wall.

In the convent garden there was a beautiful ash-tree, under which
Evelyn had often sat with the nuns during recreation, but it showed
no signs of coming into leaf; and the poplars rose up against the
bright sky, like enormous brooms. The hawthorns had resisted the
frost better than the sycamores. One pitied the sycamore and the
chestnut-trees most of all; and, fearing they would bear no leaves
that year, Evelyn stood with a black and shrivelled leaf in her hand.
"Autumn, before the spring has begun," she said. "But here is Jack."
And she stooped to pick up the great yellow tom-cat, whom she
remembered as a kindly, affectionate animal; but now he ran away from
her, turning to snarl at her. "What can have happened to our dear
Jack?" she asked herself. And Miss Dingle, who had been watching her
from a little distance, cried out:

"You'll not succeed in catching him; he has been very wicked lately,
and is quite changed. The devil must have got into him, in spite of
the blue ribbon I tied round his neck."

"How are you, Miss Dingle?"

Miss Dingle evinced a considerable shyness, and muttered under her
breath that she was very well. She hoped Evelyn was the same; and ran
away a little distance, then stopped and looked back, her curiosity
getting the better of her. "Ordinary conversation does not suit her,"
Evelyn said to herself. And, when they were within speaking distance
again, Evelyn asked her what had become of the blue ribbon she had
tied round the cat's neck to save him from the devil.

"He tore it off--I mean the devil took it off. I can't catch him. If
you'd try?--if you'd get between him and that bush. It is a pity to
see a good cat go to the devil because we can't get a bit of blue
ribbon on his neck."

Evelyn stood between the cat and the bush, and creeping near, caught
him by the neck, and held him by the forepaws while Miss Dingle tried
to tie the ribbon round his neck; but Jack struggled, and raising one
of his hind paws obliged Evelyn to loose him.

"There is no use trying; he won't let it be put on his