ave to look out?" asked Dennis.

"The kittens must be sent away from here this day three weeks," said
Aunt Katharine solemnly; "and remember, children, I said `two _good_
homes,' so I trust you to take trouble to find them. It would be really
kinder to drown them at once, than to send them where they might be
starved or ill-treated."

Two good homes! It was indeed a serious responsibility, and their aunt
had said the words so earnestly, that the children were both much
impressed by them. Maisie in particular, in the midst of her rejoicing
that the kittens were saved, felt quite sobered by the burden resting
upon her.

"How ever shall we find two good homes?" she said to Dennis as they went
up-stairs. But Dennis never looked at the troublesome side of life, if
he could avoid it.

"It'll be jolly to keep all three of them for three weeks, won't it?" he
said. "How pleased Madam would be if she knew!"

"We must get up very early to-morrow, and go and tell her," said Maisie.

"It matters most to tell Tom," said Dennis; "because if he finds them in
the loft, he'll drown them straight off in a bucket."

The horror of this suggestion, and the future of the two kittens if they
escaped this danger, kept Maisie awake for a long while that night.

She slept in a tiny room opening out of Aunt Katharine's, and she knew
how dreadfully late it must be, when she heard her aunt moving about,
and saw the light of her candle underneath the door. After that,
however, she soon went to sleep, with the kittens, their homes, and Tom
the stable-boy, all jumbled up together in her head.

CHAPTER TWO.

HAUGHTON PARK.

Before the clock had finished striking six the next morning, Dennis and
Maisie were in the stable-yard. Tom was there, pumping water into a
pail, and Jacko the raven was there, stalking about with gravity, and
uttering a deep croak now and then. Jacko was not a nice character, and
more feared than liked by most people. He was a thief and a bully, and
so cunning that it was impossible to be up to all his tricks. In
mischief he delighted, and nothing pleased him more than to frighten and
tease helpless things, yet, with all these bad qualities, he had been
allowed to march about for many years, unreproved, in Aunt Katharine's
stable-yard. Maisie had been very much afraid of him in the days when
she wore socks, for he had a way of digging at her little bare legs with
his cruel beak whenever he could get near