gh a door that
Aunt Laura had opened, hoping to get clear of them.

Then pat, pat, pat, again in chase went Lou and Amy's shoes; flap, flap,
flap, followed Uncle Leonard's slippers; and Mamma Wilson and Aunt Laura
brought up the rear with an irregular run and walk. Right through the
length of the whole second story, through the hallway, and from room to
room they rushed, with such a clatter and whoop as had never before been
heard in that house, merry as were its people.

Cattegat will now surely catch that ferocious rat in the last room,
thought every one. But no; straight down the back stairs plunged the
rat, and jump, jump, followed Cattegat, still several feet behind it.
And at the bottom of the stairway, closed by a door, the race would have
been doubtlessly won by Cattegat, but Peggy O'Conner, hearing such an
unusual commotion overhead, came to the door to inquire its cause. As
Peggy opened the door she heard several voices call: "Don't open that
door; Cattegat's after a rat."

Bang! went the door--closed quickly, I assure you; but something flew
past Peggy, and she only shut the door in Cattegat's face.

As that something, very much like a rat, flew past Peggy, and vanished
out of the kitchen, a piece of soap that Katie, the other girl, threw
with a very bad aim, went flying after it. But frightened Peggy, in
dismay, raised her hands, backed awkwardly against a tub of blue water
on the floor, and before she could recover her balance, splashed down
into the water, which flew about like the spray of a great fountain.

As the whole party filed down the back stairs, Katie was trying amidst
her merriment to help wringing-wet Peggy out of her queer bath, and all
but Cattegat had something to laugh at.

Cattegat seemed very much disappointed because the rat had escaped, and
went out in the yard, and hid himself under a rose-bush.

As for the rat, Lou is pretty certain that he sees it occasionally
capering about the stable, very much unlike a common rat that has never
had an adventure.

[Illustration]

THE MORNING MESSAGE.

BY K. M. M.

A beam was sent out by the morning sun
To carry the message that day had begun.

First the gay courier told his story
To the opening buds of the morning-glory.

The birds in their nest on the branch o'erhead
Heard every word that the sunbeam said,

And all at once in the trees was heard
The twittered "good-morning" of each little bird.

Then