AUNT ESTHER'S RULES. 153 



ther said to me, *' My dear, you must never frighten an 

 animal. I have suffered enough from fear to know that 

 there is no suffering more dreadful ; and a helpless animal, 

 that cannot speak to tell its fright, and cannot understand 

 an explanation of what alarms it, ought to move your 

 pity." 



I had never thought of this before, and then I remem- 

 bered how, when I was a very, very little girl, a grown-up 

 boy in school had amused himself with me and my little 

 brother in much the same way as that in which I had 

 amused myself with the kitten. He hunted us under one 

 of the school-room tables by threatening to cut our ears 

 off if we came out, and took out his pen-knife, and opened 

 it, and shook it at us whenever we offered to move. Very 

 likely he had not the least idea that we really could be 

 made to suffer with fear at so absurd a threat, any 

 more than I had that my kitten could possibly be afraid 

 of the piano ; but our suffering was in fact as real as if 

 the boy really had intended what he said, and was really 

 able to execute it. 



Another thing which Aunt Esther strongly impressed on 

 my mind was, that, when there were domestic animals 

 about a house which were not wanted in a family, it was 

 far kinder to have them killed in some quick and certain 

 way than to chase them out of the house, and leave them 

 to wander homeless, to be starved, beaten, and abused. 



