not listening to him, but was watching something with strange eagerness.
Such a fixed intent look was on her face that he was alarmed and sought
the cause of it. Presently he found that her gaze was fixed on the
movements of her pet dove which was in its cage hanging in the window.
He spoke to her, but she seemed displeased, so he laid "Clarissa
Harlowe" aside. Nor did he ever repeat the experiment of reading to her.

Yet that same evening, as he happened to be looking through his writing
table drawer with Puss beside him looking over his elbow, she spied a
pack of cards, and then he was forced to pick them out to please her,
then draw them from their case. At last, trying first one thing, then
another, he found that what she was after was to play piquet with him.
They had some difficulty at first in contriving for her to hold her
cards and then to play them, but this was at last overcome by his
stacking them for her on a sloping board, after which she could flip
them out very neatly with her claws as she wanted to play them. When
they had overcome this trouble they played three games, and most
heartily she seemed to enjoy them. Moreover she won all three of them.
After this they often played a quiet game of piquet together, and
cribbage too. I should say that in marking the points at cribbage on the
board he always moved her pegs for her as well as his own, for she could
not handle them or set them in the holes.

The weather, which had been damp and misty, with frequent downpours of
rain, improved very much in the following week, and, as often happens in
January, there were several days with the sun shining, no wind and light
frosts at night, these frosts becoming more intense as the days went on
till bye and bye they began to think of snow.

With this spell of fine weather it was but natural that Mr. Tebrick