think I'm getting on. Listen to me do this exercise."

She sat down, and, with much conscientious effort, went over some
simple bars. Then she looked up at her companion and caught him smiling.

"Well," she exclaimed, in a pet, "you must begin at the beginning in
everything, mustn't you? Come and let me hear what you can do."

"Not even so much."

"Then don't laugh at a poor girl doing her best. You have such a queer
smile too; it seems both ill-natured and good-natured at the same time.
Now wait a minute till I come back."

She went into an inner room, and closed the door behind her. In five
minutes it opened again. She appeared in a dressing gown and with her
feet in slippers. Her fine hair fell heavily about her shoulders; in
her arms she held a beautiful black cat, with white throat and paws.

"This is my child. Don't you admire him? Shake hands, Grim."

"Why Grim?"

"It's short for Grimalkin. The name of a cat in a hook of fairy tales I
used to be fond of reading. Don't you think he's got a beautiful face,
and a good deal more intelligent than some people we could mention? I
picked him up on our door-step, two months ago. Oh, you never saw such
a wretched little object, dripping with rain, and with such a poor
starved little face, and bones almost coming through the skin. He
looked up at me, and begged me as plain as plain could be to have pity
on him and help him; didn't you, Grimmy? And so I brought him upstairs,
and made him comfortable, and now we shall never part.--Do you like
animals?"

"Yes."

The door of the room suddenly opened, and there sprang in a
fresh-coloured young girl in hat and jacket, short, plump, pretty, and
looking about seventeen. She started back on seeing that the room was
occupied.

"What is it, Sally?" asked Grim's mistress, with a good-natured laugh.

"Why, Mrs. Walter told me you wasn't in yet; I'm awful sorry, I beg
your pardon."

She spoke with a strong south-west-country accent.

"Do you want me?"

"It's only for Grim," returned Sally, showing something which she held
wrapped up in paper. "I'd brought un home a bit o' fish, a nice bit
without bone; it'll just suit he."

"Then come and give it he," said the other, with a merry glance at
Waymark. "But he mustn't make a mess on the hearthrug."

"Oh, trust un for that," cried Sally. "He won't pull it off the paper."

Grim was accordingly provided with his supper, and Sally ran away with
a "good-night."

"Who's t