his hors-es as they be-gan to
prick up their ears. The next min-ute they saw what it was. A dog came
to-ward them at full speed, howl-ing with fright, while close at his
heels was a cat wild with rage. Her ears were laid back, and she meant
to catch and scratch the dog if she could. But he was too fleet for her,
and as they looked they saw puss give up the chase and climb up on a
fence.

[Illustration]

"Well," said pa-pa, "I think that dog has had a les-son. He will not
trou-ble that cat a-gain, I am sure. I won-der what he did to make her
so an-gry. Per-haps he teased her kit-tens."

"There," said Kate, a few min-utes la-ter, "there is a dog that is not
go-ing to be driv-en by a cat. Just look, mam-ma, he wants to get some
of that ba-by's sup-per." Mam-ma looked up, and on the porch of a house
saw just what you see in this pic-ture--a fat small boy with a slice of
bread and but-ter, while a dog al-most as big as the boy looked on
wait-ing for a bite.

[Illustration]

Just at the side gate of the house stood an old cart half full of hay.
It had not been used for some time, and a pair of birds had made their
nest in it and had two or three young birds, which they were just
feed-ing with a worm.

[Illustration]

"Oh, how sweet!" cried Kate, "Pa-pa, dear, do stop a min-ute." So pa-pa
drew in his hors-es, and they watched them for a lit-tle while. The
birds did not seem to mind them at all.

"There are no bad boys here-a-bout," said pa-pa, "that is ve-ry
cer-tain."

"I am quite sure," said mam-ma, "that it must be time for us to be home.
The sun is near-ly set-ting."

[Illustration]

"Yes," said pa-pa, "it is ten min-utes of six. I will take a new way
home, and we can be there in a ve-ry short time." So he turned off in-to
a lane close at hand. The hors-es seemed to know that their work was
near-ly done, and went on so brisk-ly that just as the hall clock struck
six they stopped in front of the door.

[Illustration]

Nurse was wait-ing on the pi-az-za to meet them, and she jumped Kate out
of the car-riage and took her right up to the nur-se-ry, where in a
ve-ry short time her tea was all read-y. How hun-gry she was; it
seemed to her that bread and milk nev-er tast-ed so good be-fore, and
she had her bowl filled three times. At last she pushed back her chair
and said she had had e-nough. Then she be-gan to tell to nurse all she
had seen--the boys, and the dogs, and all the pleas-ant sights; and all
the t