Without waiting for an answer she knelt beside the pitiful little animal
that was tied to the bench, and with trembling fingers unloosed the cord
that held it, noting as she did so how its bones showed, even through its
coat of fur. When it was at liberty she gathered it close to her breast
and turned to face the boy.

He had not tried to run away. Even with the anger surging through her,
Rose-Marie admitted that the child was not--in one sense--a coward. He
had waited, brazenly perhaps, to hear what she had to say. With blazing
eyes she said it:

"Why," she questioned, and the anger that made her eyes blaze also put a
tremor into her voice, "why were you deliberately hurting this kitten?
Don't you know that kittens can feel pain just as much as you can feel
pain? Don't you know that it is wicked to make anything suffer? Why were
you so wicked?"

The boy looked up at her with sullen, dark eyes. The grim twist at one
corner of his mouth became more pronounced.

"Aw," he said gruffly, "why don't yer mind yer own business?"

If Rose-Marie's hands had been free, she would have taken the boy
suddenly and firmly by both shoulders. She felt an overwhelming desire to
shake him--to shake him until his teeth chattered. But both of her hands
were busy, soothing the gray kitten that shivered against her breast.

"I am minding my own business," she told the boy. "It's my business to
give help where it's needed, and this kitten," she cuddled it closer,
"certainly needed help! Haven't you ever been told that you should be