But I mustn’t begin to tell you all the things that happened that day.  You see, I have made quite a long story of my first evening, so you must try and fancy all about the walk in the park with Jane, and the drive with Grandmamma to the town, and the toy-shop, and what we bought there.

When we came home it was my tea-time; and after that Jane changed my frock, and did my hair, and took me down to dessert, in the dining-room.  Ah, then the shy fit came on, and I bent my head very gravely to take the sweet bits off Uncle Hugh’s fork, I remember.  But when he had pushed back his chair, given his arm to grandmamma, and his hand to me, and taken us into the drawing-room—­then, while he made me nestle down on his knee in the soft easy-chair, all my shyness went away at the look of his merry eyes.

“Now for the goose that Jack killed,” he said; and then and there began the funniest story you ever heard.  Only I can’t tell it in the funny words and with the merry, twinkling glances he gave me.

[Illustration:  The dog that chased the cat.]

It was when Uncle Hugh was a middy, and he had been sailing in a great big ship ever so long, till at last they came to some foreign country, I don’t know where.  Well, Uncle Hugh and his friend Jack Miller went roaming about, very glad to get off the sea.  They took possession of a little empty hut on the beach, and spent some of the time there, and some of the time roaming about on the hills.  Now it chanced, one day, that they saw a flock of wild geese flying over the shore.  Jack had a gun with him, and he instantly shot one of these geese.  Uncle Hugh says they had had so much salt meat at sea, that they smacked their lips to think of a nice fat goose for dinner.  So they carried it off to their hut, and then they pulled off all the feathers one by one, and made it quite ready to cook.  What funny cooks they must have been!  But it wasn’t quite time to roast it, so they tied it up by a string to the door and went away, leaving the captain’s dog, Neptune, to watch it.

[Illustration:  The thief that Stole the goose.]

Now, Nep was a very funny dog—­a nervous dog, Uncle Hugh called him—­and he was quite afraid something would happen.  By and by, poor pussy came to have a peep at the goosey-gander, and she climbed up the steps on tip-toe just to look.  Nep watched her, and didn’t feel easy in his mind, and when poor pussy just stretched forward her head (because she was a little short-sighted, I dare say), Nep could bear it no longer.  He gave a great loud bark, and flew along the road after the wretched, flying cat.  Silly dog! while he was gone after puss, and just as he had his fore-paws quite over her back, up comes a sly thief to the hut door, quietly unhooks the bird, and runs off the other way, with its head hanging over his shoulder.  “And, so, you see, Sissy,” said Uncle Hugh in his funnily grave way, “poor Jack and I came back to find our dinner all gone!” But they got scent of the thief, and they caught him and shut him up in their little hut, and locked him in, and left him with nothing but bread and water.  “For there was no policeman there, Sissy; we had to play policemen ourselves.”