some bull's-eyes."

At any rate the monotonous plaint ceased.

They had returned on their steps across the common, and were nearing
the village, when they met three small boys. One of them carried a
kitten.

Erebus stopped short. "What are you going to do with that kitten,
Billy Beck?" she said.

"We be goin' to drown 'im in the pond," said Billy Beck in the
important tones of an executioner.

Erebus sprang; and the kitten was in her hands. "You're not going to
do anything of the sort, you little beast!" she said.

The round red face of Billy Beck flushed redder with rage and
disappointment, and he howled:

"Gimme my kitty! Mother says she won't 'ave 'im about the 'ouse, an' I
could drown 'im."

"You won't have him," said Erebus.

Billy Beck and his little brothers, robbed of their simple joy, burst
into blubbering roar of "It's ourn! It ain't yourn! It's ourn!"

"It isn't! A kitten isn't any one's to drown!" cried Erebus.

The Terror gazed at Erebus and Billy Beck with judicial eyes, the cold
personification of human justice. Erebus edged away from him ready to
fly, should human justice intervene actively. The Terror put his hand
in his pocket and fumbled. He drew out a penny, and looked at it
earnestly. He was weighing the respective merits of justice and
bull's-eyes.

"Here's a penny for your kitten. You can buy bull's-eyes with it," he
said with a sigh, and held out the coin.

A sudden greed sparkled in Billy Beck's tearful eyes. "'E's worth
more'n a penny--a kitty like 'im!" he blubbered.

"Not to drown. It's all you'll get," said the Terror curtly. He
tossed the penny to Billy's feet, turned on his heel and went back
across the common away from the village. Some of the brightness faded
out of the faces of Erebus and Wiggins.

"I wouldn't have given him a penny. He was only going to drown the
kitten," said Erebus in a grudging tone.

"It was his kitten. We couldn't take it without paying for it," said
the Terror coldly.

Erebus followed him, cuddling the kitten and talking to it as she went.

Presently Wiggins spurned the earth and said, "There ought to be a home
for kittens nobody wants--and puppies."

The Terror stopped short, and said: "By Jove! There's Aunt Amelia!"

Erebus burst into a bitter complaint of the stinginess of Aunt Amelia,
who had more money than all the rest of the family put together, and
yet never rained postal orders on deserving nieces and nephews