ways hated water?" exclaimed Susanna, resting upon her
broom-handle, and bending above her anxious mistress till a dash from
the dipper deluged both cat and lap.

Yet now full of sympathy and regret Kate did not pause in her work of
restoration, and either the bath did revive Sir Philip or he had been on
the point of recovery, for he suddenly sprang up, shook his drenched
head, and staggered toward his cushion on the hearth, where he lay down
and proceeded to smooth his disordered fur.

Then Kate put her arms around Miss Maitland and helped that lady to her
feet, saying, earnestly:

"Oh, I am so sorry, and I am so glad! but it will never happen again.
Poor old Sir Philip won't be in a hurry to fight, and Punch never does
if he can help it. Do you, you darling?" she finished to the perplexed
dog, which she had unceremoniously dropped from her shoulder when she
had rushed for the water.

The pug gave a funny little wink of one intelligent eye, as if he fully
understood; then slowly waddled across the rag-carpeted floor and curled
himself up at a safe distance from Sir Philip, upon whom he kept a wary
watch. But he was a weary dog by that time, and so glad of warmth and
repose that he left even his own damaged coat to take care of itself for
the present.

However, if he was calm, the Widow Sprigg was no longer so. Kate had not
only drenched the cat and his mistress, but she had left a large puddle
in the very centre of Susanna's "new brea'th" of rag carpet, its owner
now indignantly demanding to know if Miss Eunice "was goin' to put up
with any such doin's? That wery brea'th that I cut an' sewed myself, out
of my own rags, an' not a smitch of your'n in it, an' hadn't much more'n
just got laid down ready for winter. An' if it had come to this that
dogs and silly girls was to be took in an' done for, cats, or no cats,
Angory or otherwise, she, for one, Susanna Sprigg, wasn't goin' to put
up with it, an' so I tell you, an' give notice, according."

During the delivery of this speech the widow's black eyes had glared
through her spectacles so fiercely that the young visitor was alarmed,
and said to Aunt Eunice, appealingly:

"Oh, please don't let her go just because I've come! I'll not stay
myself, to make such trouble, even if you'll have me--and you haven't
said so yet. There's that boarding-school left--"

Miss Maitland ignored the appeal, but looking through the window
remarked to her irate assistant:

"That lug