f the cats soon acknowledged that.

The very first day she shut the kitchen door in the face of the
tom-cats who used to enjoy watching Lizina at her work, and a young and
mischievous cat who jumped in by the open kitchen window and alighted on
the table got such a blow with the rolling-pin that he squalled for an
hour.

With every day that passed the household became more and more aware of
its misfortune.

The work was as badly done as the servant was surly and disagreeable;
in the corners of the rooms there were collected heaps of dust; spiders'
webs hung from the ceilings and in front of the window-panes; the beds
were hardly ever made, and the feather beds, so beloved by the old and
feeble cats, had never once been shaken since Lizina left the house.
At Father Gatto's next visit he found the whole colony in a state of
uproar.

'Caesar has one paw so badly swollen that it looks as if it were
broken,' said one. 'Peppina kicked him with her great wooden shoes on.
Hector has an abscess in his back where a wooden chair was flung at him;
and Agrippina's three little kittens have died of hunger beside their
mother, because Peppina forgot them in their basket up in the attic.
There is no putting up with the creature--do send her away, Father
Gatto! Lizina herself would not be angry with us; she must know very
well what her sister is like.'

'Come here,' said Father Gatto, in his most severe tones to Peppina. And
he took her down into the cellar and showed her the same two great
jars that he had showed Lizina. 'In which of these shall I dip you?' he
asked; and she made haste to answer: 'In the liquid gold,' for she was
no more modest than she was good and kind.

Father Gatto's yellow eyes darted fire. 'You have not deserved it,' he
uttered, in a voice like thunder, and seizing her he flung her into
the jar of oil, where she was nearly suffocated. When she came to the
surface screaming and struggling, the vengeful cat seized her again
and rolled her in the ash-heap on the floor; then when she rose, dirty,
blinded, and disgusting to behold, he thrust her from the door, saying:
'Begone, and when you meet a braying ass be careful to turn your head
towards it.'

Stumbling and raging, Peppina set off for home, thinking herself
fortunate to find a stick by the wayside with which to support herself.
She was within sight of her mother's house when she heard in the meadow
on the right, the voice of a donkey loudly braying. Qu