There was great rejoicing among all the Mouse family. Pudgy Mr. Moses Mouse had picked up a bit of news that delighted him and his wife and all their many relations. Somebody had stolen Miss Snooper—as the Mouse family always called Miss Kitty Cat! Somebody had taken her away!  
Master Meadow Mouse had seen it all; and he had told Moses exactly how it happened. Master Meadow Mouse knew that a had borne Miss Snooper up the road and over the hill. He had watched it disappear, with his own eyes. All those things Moses Mouse repeated as fast as his short breath would permit. He had hurried back home to tell the news as soon as he had heard it. He found, however, that no one cared how Miss Kitty Cat (or Miss Snooper), went, nor where; no one cared who took her; no one cared when. It was enough to know that she was gone. And everybody exclaimed that it was the best news ever—and good riddance to bad rubbish—meaning Miss Kitty Cat.
 
If it were only true! The Mouse family scarcely dared believe that it was. But when two days passed, and Moses Mouse himself had even ventured into the pantry, and the kitchen, and the woodshed, without meeting Miss Kitty, the Mouse family dared decide that she had indeed gone for good.
 
Meanwhile Miss Kitty Cat was having a most unhappy time. It was true that she had been stolen. A man driving a peddler's wagon up the hill one evening had noticed her as she lay on top of the stone wall, around the turn of the road beyond the . "Kitty! Kitty! Kitty!" he called, as he st............