e cat ate together as though they had been friends
all their lives.

"Meg, Meg!" called Dot, running toward them. "Miss Florence is here,
and Mother says you must come in right away and try on. Oh, whose
cat?"

"That's Annabel Lee," said Meg. "She's our cat. Sam got her 'cause
mice were in the kitchen. I'm going to take her in and show her to
Miss Florence."

"Let me hold her," begged Dot. "You have to try on. Look, Twaddles,
bet you didn't know we had a cat."

Twaddles stopped short on his kiddie-car.

"Don't tell Norah," he whispered cautiously. "Take her in the front
door and she won't know. Did Mother say we could have a cat?"

Bobby laughed.

"Norah asked for a cat," he said. "Come on, Twaddles, let's teach
Philip to jump through a hoop. The girls are going to fuss with
clothes."

Meg tossed her yellow hair out of her eyes importantly.

"I have to have the hems of some dresses let down," she declared. "I
grew in the country. Mother says so. 'Sides when you go to school you
have to be neat."

"Nina Mills isn't neat," argued Dot, toiling upstairs after Meg, and
holding Annabel Lee's long tail so that she might feel she was
having a share in carrying her. "She goes to school, Meg."

"Well, she's a sight," pronounced Meg. "Mother wouldn't let me look
the way Nina Mills does. Look, Miss Florence, we got a cat."

"If you say 'got a cat' in school, Meg, I'm sure something will happen
to you," warned Mother Blossom, bending over the sewing machine. "Miss
Florence wants to try the green dress on you, dear."

Miss Florence Davis was the little dressmaker who went about making
clothes for many of the people who lived in Oak Hill. Every one liked
her, and she was always as happy as busy folk usually are.

"What a beautiful cat," she said, stroking Annabel Lee's fur. "Now I'm
sure you're contented, Meg, with a cat and a dog. Aren't you?"

"And she's going to school, too," announced Dot enviously, sitting
down on the floor to watch Meg as she put on the new green dress.
"Here, Annabel, come sit in my lap."

The cat curled up in Dot's lap and purred loudly.

"Do you want to go to school?" asked Miss Florence sympathetically,
taking a mouthful of pins and kneeling down to pin up the hem of Meg's
frock.

"Twaddles and I both want to go," answered Dot. "But that mean old
school won't let you come till you're five--not even to kindergarten.
Did you swallow any?"

"Any what?" asked Miss Florence absently, sti