Miss Mary’s room and the next one opened into each other and were quite large, and both were covered with heavy rugs.  Pussy’s favorite game was to race back and forth from one end of the rugs to the other; sometimes he would poke his nose under the edge of a rug and wriggle in between the rug and the floor until he was simply a hump in the middle of it, like a dumpling.  It was well Miss Mary always knew where he was, or he might have been stepped on some fine evening.  But he was feeling altogether too lively for any such amusement as that, this cold night.  It was one of those dry, cold, clear evenings when you feel like running races, or snowballing, and pussy was as full of life and go as even a cat could be.  So he had a little Wild West Show all by himself, with the rugs for tanbark, and went so fast that he looked like a long black-and-white fur streak on the bright Persian rugs.

Now, if you walk and jump about on a heavy carpet for a few minutes, on a cool night, you may find that if you touch your fingers to anything iron you will get an electric spark.  So when pussy had raced about for fifteen or twenty minutes on the rugs, he was, though he did not know it, one capering little battery of electricity.

Then he jumped up on the bed and began to race over the blankets.  He was going so fast that he could not stop quite quick enough, and the bedstead was iron.  He came up against the foot of it before he could stop, and though he did not touch it, he got an electric spark right on the end of his nose!

If you have ever had a little shock from an electric machine, and can imagine how it would have felt on the tip of your nose, you will have no doubt that pussy was shocked.

He backed off very slowly, considering.  His topaz eyes got bigger and brighter, and his back higher and higher, and his tail plumier and plumier, every minute.  His fur stood out in all directions, and he lifted his paws and set them down most carefully.  He backed, and he backed, until he came up against the pillows, and then he turned around and realized that there was another iron thing behind him.  Was that bewitched, too?  At any rate, he would be cautious this time and see what happened.  He sat and looked at it for some seconds.  Then he reached out a paw very deliberately and daintily—­and got another spark on the tip of that!

You see, he had come all the way across the woolen blankets, and made electricity at every step.

Then he gave it up.  He hopped off the bed in a panic and fled down the stairs.  He came up again after awhile, and curled up on his usual cushion to go to sleep, but he was a very much puzzled cat, and there is no doubt that pussy was shocked.

Our lesson.—­For April 19.

Prepared by Marguerite Cook.

Title.—­The Cost of Discipleship.—­Luke 14:25-35.

Golden Text.—­Whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.—­Matt. 16:25.