charge as long as Mary Rose solemnly promised to come over every day
and help take care of him. Mary Rose promised most solemnly.

"I'm so glad." She beamed on Mr. Jerry and his Aunt Mary and hugged
George Washington. "It's a great relief to find a pleasant boarding
place. I can pay for two weeks, almost three weeks now," she offered.

Mr. Jerry started to speak but his Aunt Mary shook her head and he shut
his mouth with the words inside.

"We don't take board in advance for a cat," said his Aunt Mary in a way
that told Mary Rose such a thing was never done. "In fact, we've never
taken a cat to board before. I think it will be more satisfactory if
we wait until the end of the week, when we can tell just how much milk
he will drink," she added soberly.

"He's awfully greedy." Mary Rose looked sadly at the greedy George
Washington. "But he's always had all he wanted. I can't tell you how
much obliged I am and I'll come over every day. It's awfully good of
you to take him when you haven't any other boarders."

"I'd take you, too, if I could," Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary murmured as she
went to get a ginger cooky.

"I'm going to find the beautiful princess," Mary Rose told Mr. Jerry,
when she said good-by to him a few minutes later. "And when I do shall
I tell her that the prince is not going to Jericho?"

"Do," he said and his face went all red again. "Tell her that he's
going to stay right here on the job, that he will never give her up."

"Never give her up," repeated Mary Rose. She tried to say it as firmly
as he had said it and she waved her hand as she went across the alley
and into the back door of the Washington, with a most delicious thrill
at entering such a two-faced building.

Mr. Jerry looked after her and frowned. Then he shook his fist at the
Washington.

"You are an enchanted palace," he told it sternly. "If it weren't for
doggone places like you, girls would have to stay at home. They
couldn't go out in the world and grow so independent that they think
work is the biggest thing in creation. Oh, Godfrey! it isn't normal
for any girl to like a job better than a perfectly good man. When I
think of Elizabeth Thorley wasting herself on advertisements for
Bingham and Henderson's sickening jams when she might be making a
Heaven for me it sends my temperature up until I'm afraid of
spontaneous combustion. She wouldn't care if I did blow up and turn to
ashes. She wouldn't care what happened