brace, she held us down with her
legs and paws, and licked us with more affection and assiduity than she
had ever bestowed on our toilet before. Her tongue, which she rendered
as soft for the occasion as a Cat's tongue can be made, I felt pass and
repass over my eyes until the lids burst asunder, and I could _see_!

And what a confusion of objects I first beheld! It seemed as if
everything above was about to fall upon my head and crush me, and that
everything around was like a wall to prevent my moving; and when, after
a day or two, I began to understand better the distance that these
objects were from me, I fell into the opposite error, and hurt my nose
not a little through running it against a chair, which I fancied to
be very much further off. These difficulties however soon wore away.
Experience, bought at the price of some hard knocks, taught me better;
and, a month after my first peep at the world, it seemed almost
impossible I could ever have been so ignorant.

No doubt my brother and sisters procured their knowledge in a similar
way: it is certain that it cost them something. One incident, which
happened to my brother, I particularly remember; and it will serve to
prove that he did not get _his_ experience for nothing.

We were all playing about the room by ourselves, our mother being out
visiting or marketing, I do not know which, and the nurse, who was
charged to take care of us, preferring to chat to the handsome footman
in the tortoise-shell coat over the way, to looking after us Kittens.

A large pan full of something sticky, but I do not remember what, was in
a corner; and as the edge of it was very broad, we climbed on to it and
peeped in.

Our brother, who was very venturesome, said he could jump over it to the
opposite brim. We said it was not possible, for the pan was broad and
rather slippery; and what a thing it would be if he fell into it! But
the more we exclaimed about its difficulty, the more resolved he was to
try.

Getting his legs together, he gave a spring; but, slipping just as he
got to the other side, his claws could not catch hold of anything to
support himself, and he went splash backwards into the sticky mess.
His screams, and indeed ours, ought to have been enough to call nurse
to our assistance; but she was making such a noise herself with the
tortoise-shell footman, that my brother might have been drowned or
suffocated before _she_ would have come to his assistance. As it was,