1 88 More Tales of the Birds 



miss any one from the house. Selina turned them 

 out of the kitchen, and quietly made up her mind 

 that she could not now afford to keep them ; they 

 must go, with all their mess and litter, and she 

 would begin to tidy up a bit at last. Then she 

 went out to the hovel, for she heard a subdued 

 whinnying there. Fan was the one creature in 

 the place that had felt as she had ; Fan had been 

 wanting to know where the old man was, and 

 had lost her spirits and her appetite. So she 

 went and spent a full half hour with Fan, talked 

 to her, made her comfortable, and cried a little on 

 her rough old neck. At last she went once more 

 into her kitchen, and thence into her tiny parlour, 

 and after a little tidying up, she took the big 

 family Bible from under the photograph book 

 and the glass case with the stuffed kitten, and, lay- 

 ing it on the table, sat down and put on her 

 spectacles. 



She opened the book at haphazard, and began 

 to read in the Old Testament, but she could not 

 fix her attention. Her thoughts wandered far 

 away, until she was suddenly roused by some- 

 thing falling down the chimney into the grate. 



