"Yes, indeed, Auntie" said Mollie. "Don't you remember the pretty fairy
story you used to tell us about the good little girl who saved a cat
from being drowned by some bad boys, and carried her home? and she
turned out to be a fairy cat and gave that girl every thing she wished
for--cakes and candy, and a lovely pink silk frock packed in a nutshell
for her to wear to the party?"

"O Mollie! that's too much of a baby story," said Susie. "Tell us about
the musical cat who played the piano by walking over the keys, and all
the people in the house thought it was a ghost."

"Yes, Auntie; and the funny story of the cat and the parrot--how the
parrot got stuck up to her knees in a pan of dough, and in her fright
said over every thing she had learned to say: 'Polly wants a cracker!'
'Oh, my goodness' sakes alive!' 'Get out, I say!' 'Here's a row!' 'Scat,
you beast!' and so on;--and how the cat got her out."

"These are old stories, girls, and you have told them for me."

"Our old cat Jane," said Eliza Ann Jones, "is a regular cheat. You see,
she _would_ lie in grandma's chair. She used to jump in if grandma left
it only for a minute; and grandma wouldn't know she was there, and two
or three times sat right down on her. Why, it was just awful, and scared
poor grandma half to death. Well, ma whipped the old cat every time she
caught her in the chair, and we thought she was cured of the habit; but
one day ma came into the room and there was nobody there but Jane, and
she was stretched on the rug and seemed to be fast asleep; but grandma's
chair was rocking away all by itself. Ma wondered what made the chair
go, so she thought she'd watch. She left the door on a crack and peeped