"If they haven't any more sense than to run back to a place where they
don't get enough to eat and are kicked about by a lot of children, let
them run," said Johnny.

"That's so," said Arnold. "I never did see what we were doing such a
thing for, anyway--stealing Mr. Simmons's cats and giving them to Mr.
Van Ness."

It was the girl alone who stood by her guns of righteousness. "I saw and
I see," she declared, with dangerously loud emphasis. "It was only our
duty to try to rescue poor helpless animals who don't know any better
than to stay where they are badly treated. And Mr. Van Ness has so
much money he doesn't know what to do with it; he would have been real
pleased to give those cats a home and buy milk and liver for them. But
it's all spoiled now. I will never undertake to do good again, with a
lot of boys in the way, as long as I live; so there!" Lily turned about.

"Going to tell your mother!" said Johnny, with scorn which veiled
anxiety.

"No, I'm NOT. I don't tell tales."

Lily marched off, and in her wake went Johnny and Arnold, two poor
little disillusioned would-be knights of old romance in a wretchedly
commonplace future, not far enough from their horizons for any glamour.

They went home, and of the three Johnny Trumbull was the only one
who was discovered. For him his aunt Janet lay in wait and forced a
confession. She listened grimly, but her eyes twinkled.

"You have learned to fight, John Trumbull," said she, when he had
finished. "Now the very next thing you have to learn, and make yourself
worthy of your grandfather Trumbull, is not to be a fool."

"Yes, Aunt Janet," said Johnny.

The next noon, when he came home from school, old Maria, who had been
with the family ever since he could remember and long before, called him
into the kitchen. There, greedily lapping milk from a saucer, were two
very lean, tall kittens.

"See those nice little tommy-cats," said Maria, beaming upon Johnny,
whom she loved and whom she sometimes fancied deprived of boyish joys.
"Your aunt Janet sent me over to the Simmonses' for them this morning.
They are overrun with cats--such poor, shiftless folks always be--and
you can have them. We shall have to watch for a little while till they
get wonted, so they won't run home."

Johnny gazed at the kittens, fast distending with the new milk, and
felt presumably much as dear Robin Hood may have felt after one of his
successful raids in the fair, poetic past.

"Pret