men in the picture haunted me.

I have changed my mind a great many times, since I can remember, about
what I will be when I am grown up. Sometimes I have thought I should
like to be an officer and die in battle; sometimes I settled to be a
clergyman and preach splendid sermons to enormous congregations; once I
quite decided to be a head fireman and wear a brass helmet, and be
whirled down lighted streets at night, every one making way for me, on
errands of life and death.

But the history of the Brothers of Pity put me out of conceit with all
other heroes. It seemed better than anything I had ever thought of--to
do good works unseen of men, without hope of reward, and to those who
could make no return. For it rang in my ears that Godfather Gilpin had
said, "He has no friends--that is why he is being buried by the Brothers
of Pity."

I quite understood what I thought they must feel, because I had once
buried a cat who had no friends. It was a poor half-starved old thing,
for the people it belonged to had left it, and I used to see it slinking
up to the back door and looking at Tabby, who was very fat and sleek,
and at the scraps on the unwashed dishes after dinner. Mrs. Jones kicked
it out every time, and what happened to it before I found it lying
draggled and dead at the bottom of the Ha-ha, with the top of a kettle
still fastened to its scraggy tail, I never knew, and it cost me bitter
tears to guess. It cost me some hard work, too, to dig the grave, for my
spade was so very small.

I don't think Mrs. Jones would have cared to be a Brother of Pity, for
she was very angry with me for burying that cat, because it was such a