fish.

"Hang that cat! he's been stealing again! he's gnawed the cold mutton in
his nasty mouth till it's not fit to set before a Christian; and I've
nothing else for Jem's dinner. But I'll give it him now I've caught him,
that I will!"

So saying, Mary Hodgson caught up her husband's Sunday cane, and despite
pussy's cries and scratches, she gave him such a beating as she hoped
might cure him of his thievish propensities; when lo! and behold, Mrs.
Jenkins stood at the door with a face of bitter wrath.

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, ma'am, to abuse a poor dumb animal,
ma'am, as knows no better than to take food when he sees it, ma'am? He
only follows the nature which God has given, ma'am; and it's a pity your
nature, ma'am, which I've heard, is of the stingy saving species, does
not make you shut your cupboard-door a little closer. There is such a
thing as law for brute animals. I'll ask Mr. Jenkins, but I don't think
them Radicals has done away with that law yet, for all their Reform
Bill, ma'am. My poor precious love of a Tommy, is he hurt? and is his
leg broke for taking a mouthful of scraps, as most people would give
away to a beggar,--if he'd take 'em?" wound up Mrs. Jenkins, casting a
contemptuous look on the remnant of a scrag end of mutton.

Mary felt very angry and very guilty. For she really pitied the poor
limping animal as he crept up to his mistress, and there lay down to
bemoan himself; she wished she had not beaten him so hard, for it
certainly was her own careless way of never shutting the cupboard-door
that had tempted him to his fault. But the sneer at her little bit of
mutton turned her penitence to fresh wrath, and she shut the door in
Mrs. Jenkins's face, as she stood caressing her cat in the lobby, with
such a bang, that it wakened little Tom, and he began to cry.

Everything was to go wrong with Mary to-day. Now baby was awake, who was
to take her husband's dinner to the office? She took the child in her
arms, and tried to hush him off to sleep again, and as she sung she
cried, she could hardly tell why,--a sort of reaction from her violent
angry feelings. She wished she had never beaten the poor cat; she wondered
if his leg was really broken. What would her mother say if she knew how
cross and cruel her little Mary was getting? If she should live to beat
her child in one of her angry fits?

It was of no use lullabying while she sobbed so; it must be given up,
and she must just carry her b