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loved him. Happiness snatched her breath away. She bent over the kitten, burying her face in its fur. The fur tickled her nose, making her sneeze several times. Alarmed, the kitten jumped from her lap to hide under the chair, while her father produced a handkerchief.
    â€˜If your kitten’s going to make you sneeze like that,’ he suggested, ‘we shall have to call him Pepper!’
    Grace liked the name Pepper. ‘But it wasn’t Pepper who made me sneeze,’ she said anxiously, afraid that if her new pet were blamed he would be taken away again.
    For the same reason, she did her best not to let her father see that she was needing to gasp for breath. This kind of gasping was often followed by the wheezing and gurgling and whistling noises in her chest and throat which Grace herself didn’t mind too much but which always made Nanny frown and send for the doctor.
    Luckily everyone was more interested in Mama and the new baby today than in Grace. She was left alone to catch and play with her kitten. For the first time in her life, too, she was expected to go to sleep by herself when it was bedtime. Nanny tucked her up as usual, and Milly poppedher head into the nursery every few minutes to see if she was still awake. But neither of them, it seemed, had been told about Pepper, who had hidden under the bed while all the washing and undressing went on but was now tucked up under the blankets – at first fidgety, but soon confidingly asleep.
    Next morning Grace was ill. Even if she had wanted to conceal the fact that she was wheezing more noisily than ever before, she would not have known how to do it. Every breath was painful: she gulped for air, but there was never enough. The doctor, called in after he had visited Mrs Hardie and the new baby, took her temperature and murmured about autumn mists. Half an hour later Nanny Crocker bustled into the nursery to announce a treat.
    â€˜Baby Jay’s got a nurse of his own for his first month,’ she said. ‘So we’re going off to the new house today, just you and me. Milly’ll bring us up our meals, but we’ll have the whole place to ourselves. You’ll like that, won’t you?’
    â€˜Can Pepper come too?’ Grace needed to gasp for breath between every word.
    â€˜Who’s Pepper?’
    â€˜My kitten.’
    â€˜So
that’s
where that puddle in the corner came from. I should have been told.’ But Nanny did not seem cross as she told Milly to give the kitten some milk and put it into a carrying basket. Grace herself was given a dose of medicine. It made her so sleepy that she was hardly aware either of the journey to the new house or of her first night there. But the next morning she awoke breathing as easily as if she had never been ill.
    â€˜Where’s Pepper?’
    â€˜Let’s get you dressed first; then we’ll see. How d’you like your new room, then?’
    â€˜It’s lovely.’ Grace climbed on to a chair to look out of a window. From her high vantage point she could see intoa walled garden, although nothing was yet growing there. Nearer to the house the earth had been dug and raked level, ready for lawns and flower beds; an avenue of small trees had been planted along a newly gravelled drive which wound down the hill towards a lodge cottage and gateway. So high was the tower that she could look right over the garden area and see the wood, with the grassy slope just above it. It was a lot of space. ‘Pepper will get lost,’ she said anxiously.
    â€˜We’ll put some butter on his paws.’
    â€˜Why?’
    â€˜Come here and let me dress you. Well, we butter his paws and leave him to explore the rooms that are to be his home. Then he licks his paws – all little kittens do that, to clean themselves – and he tastes the dust which has stuck to the butter. That teaches him where he lives. After that, he’ll never go too far away, and he’ll