oh, no, nothing but a mouse," replied the knight
hurriedly; but still he did not take his eyes from the spot, and he
moved from side to side in his chair, and twitched his head from right
to left, and looked altogether as if he hardly knew what he was about.

"And I am sure a mouse is a most harmless thing," said Eileen.

"Harmless? Oh! delicious!" replied the knight, with so much unction that
Eileen, in her turn, opened her eyes and stared. "Delicious! quite
delicious!" murmured the knight again.

But after a moment or two more, all at once he seemed to recollect
himself, and made a great effort, and withdrew his eyes from the corner
where the mouse was still making a little feeble scratching.

"I mean a--a most interesting animal," he said. "I have always felt with
regard to mice----"

But just at this instant the mouse poked out his little head from
beneath the tapestry, and the knight leaped to his feet as if he was
shot.

"Hiss--s--s! skier--r--r! hiss--s--s--s!" he cried; and--could Eileen
believe her eyes?--for one instant she saw the knight flash past her,
and then there was nothing living in the room besides her but a great
black cat clinging by his claws half-way up the arras, and a little
brown mouse between his teeth.

Of course the only thing that Eileen could do was to faint, and so she
fainted, and it was six hours before she came to herself again. In the
mean time nobody in the world knew what had happened; and when she
opened her eyes and began to cry out about a terrible black cat, they
all thought she had gone out of her mind.

"My dear child, I assure you there is no such thing in the house as a
black cat," her father said uneasily to her, trying to soothe her in the
best way he could.

"Oh, yes, he turned into a black cat," cried Eileen.

"Who turned into a black cat?" asked her father.

"The knight did," sobbed Eileen.

And then the poor old father went out of the room, thinking that his
daughter was going mad.

"She is quite beside herself; she says that you are not a man, but a
cat," he said sorrowfully to the young knight, whom he met standing
outside his daughter's room. "What in the world could have put such
thoughts into her head? Not a thing will she talk about but black cats."

"Let me see her; I will bring her to her right mind," said the knight.

"I doubt it very much," replied the chief; but as he did not know what
else to do, he let him go into the room, and the knight