st, and I know I scatter the bread about sometimes when
I'm in a hurry."

"Well, Mollie," said Miss Ruth, laughing, "I was _not_ thinking of you,
but if the coat fits, you may put it on."

"What became of Dinah at last, Miss Ruth?"

"She made a sad end, Fannie, for as she grew older her disposition got
worse instead of better, until she became so cross and disagreeable that
she hadn't a friend left but me. She would scratch and bite little
children if they attempted to touch her, and was so cruel to one of her
own kittens that we were raising to take her place--for she was too old
and infirm to be a good mouser--that we were afraid she would kill the
poor thing outright. One morning, after she had made an unusually savage
attack on her son Solomon, my mother said: 'We must have that cat
killed, and the sooner the better. It isn't safe to keep such an ugly
creature a day longer.' Dinah was apparently fast asleep on her cushion
in the corner of the kitchen lounge when these words were spoken. In a
few minutes she jumped down, walked slowly across the room and out at
the kitchen door, and we never saw her again."

"Why, how queer! What became of her?"

"We never knew. We inquired in the neighborhood, and searched the barn
and the wood-shed, and in every place we could think of where she would
be likely to hide, but we could get no trace of her, and when weeks
passed and she did not return we concluded that she was dead."

"You don't think--_do_ you think, Miss Ruth, that she understood what
was said and knew if she stayed she would have to be killed?"

"_I_ do," said Mollie, positively. "I'm sure of it!--and so the poor
thing went off and drowned herself, or, maybe, died of a broken heart."

"Oh!" said Nellie Dimock, "poor Dinah Diamond!"

"Nonsense, Mollie!" said Susie Elliot. "Cats don't die of broken
hearts."

"She had been ailing for some days," Miss Ruth explained, "refusing her
food and looking forlorn and miserable, and I am inclined to think
instinct taught her that her end was near. You know wild animals creep
away into some solitary place to die, and Dinah had a drop or two of
wild-cat blood in her veins. I fancy she hid herself in some hole under
the barn and died there. It was a curious coincidence, that she should
have chosen that particular time, just after her doom was pronounced, to
take her departure. But what grieved me most was that, excepting myself,
every member of the family rejoiced that s