d for five minutes. Perhaps the mews we heard were his
dying groan. Or perhaps we merely imagined them, under the strain of our
guilty consciences."

But, when the box was lifted in the morning, Rusty bounded at one gay
leap to Anne's shoulder where he began to lick her face affectionately.
Never was there a cat more decidedly alive.

"Here's a knot hole in the box," groaned Phil. "I never saw it. That's
why he didn't die. Now, we've got to do it all over again."

"No, we haven't," declared Anne suddenly. "Rusty isn't going to be
killed again. He's my cat--and you've just got to make the best of it."

"Oh, well, if you'll settle with Aunt Jimsie and the Sarah-cat," said
Stella, with the air of one washing her hands of the whole affair.

From that time Rusty was one of the family. He slept o'nights on the
scrubbing cushion in the back porch and lived on the fat of the land.
By the time Aunt Jamesina came he was plump and glossy and tolerably
respectable. But, like Kipling's cat, he "walked by himself." His paw
was against every cat, and every cat's paw against him. One by one he
vanquished the aristocratic felines of Spofford Avenue. As for human
beings, he loved Anne and Anne alone. Nobody else even dared stroke
him. An angry spit and something that sounded much like very improper
language greeted any one who did.

"The airs that cat puts on are perfectly intolerable," declared Stella.

"Him was a nice old pussens, him was," vowed Anne, cuddling her pet
defiantly.

"Well, I don't know how he and the Sarah-cat will ever make out to
live together," said Stella pesimistically. "Cat-fights in the orchard
o'nights are bad enough. But cat-fights here in the livingroom are
unthinkable." In due time Aunt Jamesina arrived. Anne and Priscilla and
Phil had awaited her advent rather dubiously; but when Aunt Jamesina was
enthroned in the rocking chair before the open fire they figuratively
bowed down and worshipped her.

Aunt Jamesina was a tiny old woman with a little, softly-triangular
face, and large, soft blue eyes that were alight with unquenchable
youth, and as full of hopes as a girl's. She had pink cheeks and
snow-white hair which she wore in quaint little puffs over her ears.

"It's a very old-fashioned way," she said, knitting industriously
at something as dainty and pink as a sunset cloud. "But _I_ am
old-fashioned. My clothes are, and it stands to reason my opinions are,
too. I don't say they're any the better