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  stove stirring his arrowroot gruel. The kitchen was still.

A smothered “miaow” and the scratching of claws on wood arrested her attention, and she went hurriedly to the door.

“Tristram Dalton; what are you up here for, away from your own home?” she exclaimed.

Tristram vouchsafed no explanation of his appearance, but his demeanor spoke louder than words to Amanda’s guilty conscience, as he walked in.

“No shelter for me but the shed these days!” he seemed to say. “Instead of well-served meals, a cup of milk set here or there!”

He made the circuit of the kitchen discontentedly and finding nothing to his taste went into the adjoining room, and after walking over the full length of Caleb’s prostrate form curled himself up in a hollow at the foot of the bed.

“I’ve neglected him!” thought Amanda; “but his turn’ll come again soon enough,” and she bent her eyes on the gruel.