KITTENS IN A CUPBOARD. 83 



made a noise not very unlike the sound I 

 had heard, so I concluded the squeak must 

 be connected somehow with the door. The 

 library door opens upon the lawn, and leaving 

 it open I went out next morning for a stroll 

 round the garden. When I returned, I heard 

 a miaul under the table, and there I found a 

 wretched brindled cat looking very fierce 

 and inclined to be pugnacious ; it was one of 

 the strays that haunt my garden, a friend 

 of Charlie's. I was not sorry, when I opened 

 the door, to see it dart off, for had I attempted 

 a battle with closed doors I should certainly 

 have come badly off: the brute was quite 

 prepared for a spring at me. I drove her 

 out of the garden and thought no more about 

 her. 



My daughter, who had been from home 

 for ten days, went this morning to a cup- 

 board in the library in which old newspapers 

 are kept, and which so far as I know could 

 not have been opened during the whole ten 

 days of her absence, and there she found a 

 litter of four kittens ! seemingly about a fort- 

 night old and all alive and well ; theirs were 

 the squeaks I had heard. 



How the little creatures subsisted the 

 whole of that time is a mystery. The mother 

 could not have sneaked into the room except 



