[Illustration:  MY PRETTY KITTEN.]

Caroline had a kitten given her, by her uncle, when she had grown up to be quite a large girl.  It was a beautiful creature.  I think they called it a Maltese kitten.  Nothing of the kind had been seen in the place where Caroline lived, before Tommy, as she called her new pet, was brought there.  Well, of course she told all the little folks what a fine present her uncle had made to her, and they were invited to come over and see the “dear little creature.”  She talked about her kitten as if it were one of the wonders of the world, and as if she thought she was a young queen, with the wealth of Cleopatra or Elizabeth, and that half the inhabitants of the globe would certainly come and bow before her and her wonderful kitten.

When she met her young friends, she talked of nothing hardly but “my pretty Maltese kitten.”

That is the way with selfish folks.  They think and talk a great deal of what concerns them, and you seldom hear them praise anything that belongs to their neighbors.

I shall never forget—­if you will allow me to go a step or two out of my way for an illustration—­I shall never forget how, when I was a little school-boy, Mother Budd, a rather selfish old lady, used to call us into her kitchen, to see the nice honey she had been taking out of her bee-hives.  “Isn’t that fine?” she would ask; “eh, isn’t that fine honey, boys?” Of course it was fine, and we said so.  “Well, you can go now,” she would say, after that.  As for letting us taste of her fine honey, that she never thought of doing.

I don’t know but we should almost have served her right, if we had done something as a good old minister I have heard of, once did in very similar circumstances.  He was making a call upon one of the ladies of his parish—­upon Aunt Katy, who was noted all over the neighborhood for being close-fisted.  Almost as soon as the good man had got into the house, she invited him to go into the buttery, and look at her nice cheeses.  He went in, the old lady acting as a guide.  “There,” said she, pointing to a mammoth cheese which she had just made for the fair, and which she was particularly proud of, “there’s a cheese for you.”  “Thank you, Aunt Katy,” said the minister, “my wife was saying only this morning that we should have to get a new cheese pretty soon.”  And he took the cheese down from the shelf, carried it out to his wagon, bade the astonished lady of the house a good morning, and drove off to visit some of the rest of his flock.

Selfishness has the same face, look at it where you will.  It made quite a scar in the features of Caroline’s character.  Without that, they would have been beautiful—­with it, they were ugly enough.

But about that kitten.  Clara Goodsell was as full of fun as a hickory nut is of meat.  She heard of Caroline’s kitten, and she, too, was invited to call and see it.  She did not go, though, and, indeed, the girls very generally failed to comply with the invitation.  They knew well enough that, if they went to see the kitten, they would not be allowed to take it, and that all they could do would be to stand a little way off, and look at it, and remark how beautiful it was.