Page:Pratt portraits - sketched in a New England suburb (IA prattportraitssk00full).pdf/54

 Harriet's severe face, but she said nothing. She only made a mental note of the little speech as being "another foreign notion."

To-day, while her mother was "gone to Grandma's," Lucy stood at a front window, gazing idly across the snow-covered lawn to the street, as young girls will gaze when the house seems empty, and the outside world is full of possibilities. She told herself she was hoping that Annie Owen might come to see her.

Suddenly she beheld her pet kitten, a frisky little bunch of gray fur, scurrying across the snow toward the street, toward all the dangers that menace little kittens in this wicked world. Quick as thought, Lucy had snatched her Red Riding-hood cape, that was hanging on the hat-tree, and was running swiftly toward the "evergreen corner" in pursuit. She found kitty examining with much interest the shady recesses beneath a dark hemlock, whose branches swept the ground. Puss paid no heed to her mistress' voice. She was stepping daintily about in the snow, lifting her soft little paws very high, and evincing great surprise when her waving tail brought a sudden shower of white powder down upon her from the low-hanging needles.

"Here, kitty, kitty! Come, puss, come!" Lucy called, in persuasive tones. But pussy did not move an eyelid in response.

Now Lucy, whose very decided will was trained to submission in several legitimate direc-