backward glance, as much as to say, "Gone out; will be back soon."
Then she dashed across the street, and waited on the steps of the
Boy's house. Very soon a man came with a bundle, and when the house-
maid opened the door Mrs. Chinchilla walked in. She hadn't any
visiting-card with her; but then the Boy hadn't left any card when he
called for the kitten, so she didn't care for that.

The housemaid didn't see her when she slipped in. It was a very nice
house to hold such a heartless boy, she thought. The parlor door was
open, but she knew the kitten wouldn't be there, so she ran upstairs.
When she reached the upper hall she stood perfectly still, with her
ears up and her whiskers trembling. Suddenly she heard a faint mew,
then another, and then a laugh; that was the Boy. She pushed open a
door that was ajar, and walked into the nursery. The Boy was seated in
the middle of the floor, tying the kitten to a tin cart, and the poor
little thing was mewing piteously. Mrs. Chinchilla dashed up to the
Boy, scratched him as many long scratches as she had time for at that
moment, took the frightened kitten in her kind, gentle mouth, the way
all mother-cats do (because if they carried them in their forepaws
they wouldn't have enough left to walk on), and was downstairs and out
on the front doorstep before the housemaid had finished paying the man
for the bundle. And when she got that chinchilla catkin home in the
safe, sunny bay-window, she washed it over and over and over so many
times that it never forgot, so long as it lived, the day it was stolen
by the Boy.

When the Boy's mother hurried upstairs to see why he was crying so
loud, she told him that he must expect to be scratched by mother-cats
if he stole their kittens. "I shall take your pretty Fauntleroy collar
off," she said; "it doesn't match your disposition."