and a smart looking Tom Cat in the neighbourhood paid his court to Miss Puss, and asked her by kind looks and gentle actions if she would become his wife. Puss scolded and scratched for some time, but at length they made a match of it, and in due time, Puss became a mother. She however, notwithstanding all her skill in concealing them, was doomed to see her small family torn from her, and share the same fate as her brothers and sisters had experienced on former occasions.

As Puss was rambling in the fields some time after her confinement, in pursuit of some birds, a number of gentlemen were coursing for hares, and when the dogs saw Puss, they immediately started after her. Puss ran as fast as she could, but the dogs ran much faster than she, and were just at her heels, when she reached a tree, and saved her life by climbing up it.

Puss was now safe from the dogs, and she remained in the tree for some time before she durst come down again. On her return to the farm house, three boys who had been to school, were playing in the fields. Each boy had a large stick on his shoulder, and as soon as they saw Puss, they ran after her. She again took refuge in a tree, but the boys threw stones at her and hit her so hard, that she at length fell senseless to the ground. One of the boys seized poor Puss; and they were going to have some rare sport as they said, by fastening the cat on a board, and then launching it on the pond, after which they would set the dogs at her, and Puss could only keep them off by scratching their noses. Everything was in readiness: Puss was bound upon the board, and they were just going to sail it into the middle of the pond, when the schoolmaster came past, and the boys were obliged, after receiving a good flogging, to set poor Puss at liberty.

Shortly after these adventures, a friend paid a visit to the farm house, and being very much in want of a good cat, he took poor Puss with him to York. Pussy's new mistress had a fine canary bird, which she was very fond of. One day the canary had got through the wires of his cage, and Puss seeing it perched on the table, could not resist the temptation; but sprang at it and seized it in her claws. The poor canary was almost eaten, when the master came into the room, and seeing what was done, he took a whip, and would have killed poor Puss, but for little Mary, who begged him to spare her life.

Puss was a good mouser, and soon cleared the house of them. She soon got acquainted with town life, such as climbing walls and houses, and jumping from roof to roof, either in gossipping with her neighbours or in search of prey. Once, while showing to some other cats how clever she was in jumping about, she fell into the street, and would have been killed, but for some fat sheep that were passing along the street at the time, and Puss had the good luck to fall upon the back of one of them, which had so much wool on it, as not at all to hurt her.

The next adventure and misfortune of poor Puss, was, to examine the contents of a pigeon cote in the neighbourhood. After climbing up a great height, she contrived to leap down on the board, and got in among the pigeons, where she made sad havoc among the young birds; but, the master hearing a