All the while, as the aunts half suspected, she was criticising everything that came within the ken of her hungry eyes. She found Aunt Jenny imperious, Aunt Mary dull, and knew that Aunt Amy was thinking of her sweet smile as she smiled. For Martha was outside of it all, a mere spectator of this life of peace and quiet and plenty, and she secretly hungered after something to care for something to take the place of the little brothers and sisters who had always run to her to have their faces washed and their aprons buttoned. They expected her to play with dolls, she, Martha Clarke, who had real work to do and had learned to push and crowd her own way.

Months went by and the barrier was unbroken. One evening the tea bell rang again and again without bringing any Martha. The aunts were in consternation. Had she run away or was it a case of kidnaping? After nearly an hour the suspense was ended by the arrival of Martha. But such a Martha! Her neat raiment was muddy and torn. Her hair was in shocking disorder, Her right hand, tied up in a handkerchief, was emphatically bloody, but in spite of this, it was used to steady her bonnet, which she carried by the string, basket-wise, in her left hand.

Exclamations of horror and surprise burst from the astonished women. "Martha, where have you been? What have you been doing? What is the matter with your dress? Have you hurt your band? Why, it's bloody! Has the child been fighting? Martha, are you going to answer?"

Martha was actually embarrassed. As she advanced into the lamp light they saw that her cheeks were crimson and her eyes sparkling, also that the contents of her bonnet was a dilapidated kitten. When she did speak, her voice was shriller than usual.

"I fell down in the mud and my hand is hurt," was her meager and hesitating answer.

"Where did the cat come from?"

"It isn't a cat, it's a kitten, and it was out in the yard, and I tried to catch it and it ran away and a dog chased it. When I came, up, the dog was eating the kitten, and I hit him and then he bit me and pushed me down in the mud. But I'm going to keep the kitten." The last defiantly, then on second thought, she added:

"If you please. It's awfully hurt, that kitten."

In the silence that followed the shrill child voice the aunts looked at each other and one thought was in the mind of each. "She looks like Arthur."

When Martha went to bed that night the kitten, with its wounds all dressed, was slumbering peacefully before the kitchen fire.

Time passed on happily for the kitten, which was not very much injured after all, and full of new interest for Martha, who plunged head and soul into the education of the kitten. Toward her aunts her feeling was unchanged. She drew a line between them and the kitten.

One evening Aunt Jenny and Aunt Amy had gone to prayer meeting. Aunt Mary was not well and she sat bolstered up in a rocking chair, knitting, before the bright fire in the sitting room grate. Martha sat beside her, also knitting, in theory, but in practice carrying on a flirtation with the kitten, which was now a very gay kitten, in deed. An empty rocking chair stood very near the fire and the kitten was leaping back and forth between its chair and Martha's, making its attacks with much caution and its retreats with much speed. Aunt Mary was sleepily watching the fun.

Suddenly there was a loud crash. The kitten had fallen into the fire in such a fashion as to knock over the rocking chair in front of the grate. It was a prisoner in the fiery furnace.

Many years had passed since Aunt Mary had moved so quickly. She threw herself at the rocking chair and flung it to one side. She snatched up the unfortunate kitten and made one rush to the kitchen and the kerosene can, and by the time Martha overtook her, was soaking the poor little burned paws.

Half an hour later when Aunts Jenny and Amy opened the sitting room door, an astonishing sight met their eyes. The firelight redness flickered over the excited faces of Martha and Aunt Mary laughing and talking eagerly together, Martha no longer dignified and Aunt Mary no longer shy. That was the beginning of the end, but Aunt Mary was always Martha's favorite.

And it was the little kitten who did it.