ith whom
she seemed on excellent terms.

"Scamp is very fond of Snowball," said Linda, "but he hates all other
cats, and he'd kill them if he could catch them. One day, in Conway,
he saw a white puss rather like ours, and it was so funny to watch
him, because he couldn't make up his mind whether he ought to lick it
or chase it."

"How beautifully clean she is!" said Sylvia, taking the pretty soft
creature on her lap, and stroking the long, silky fur. "Do you wash
her?"

"We do sometimes," replied Linda. "But she doesn't like it at all,
poor dear. It takes three of us to manage it, two to hold her, and the
other to soap and rinse her. I never try it without the boys. Once I
thought I had such a splendid idea. I was going to try dry cleaning. I
rubbed her fur thoroughly well with flour, and I was just brushing it
out again when she screwed herself from my arms and jumped through the
open window. It was pouring with rain, and when she came back she was
simply a pudding. I didn't know what to do, and the boys were away; so
I let out the parrot, and put her inside the cage, and then watered
her with the watering can till I got the paste off her."

"Poor Pussie, what a shame!" said Sylvia.

"So it was, but I really couldn't help it that time. She should keep
herself clean, and then she wouldn't need to go through such troubles.
Would you like to come and see the hens and my bantams?"

There was a stableyard at the back of the house which led into a field
where the fowls were kept. They were a pet hobby with Mrs. Marshall,
who spent many hours among her poultry, and had a particularly good
strain of white Leghorns which she greatly valued. There were a number
of neat wire runs, each with its small wooden henhouse, and in
several of these were interesting families of chickens, varying in
size from sweet fluffy atoms, as yellow as canaries, to long-legged
creatures which Sylvia thought were not pretty at all.

"They haven't grown their full feathers yet," said Linda. "They're
ugly ducklings still, but they'll be very handsome by and by. Look at
this fussy old hen. I set her myself during the Easter holidays. She
was so broody that she actually insisted on sitting on a Liebig pot. I
suppose she took it for an egg. She'd have wondered why it didn't
hatch, I expect, if I hadn't given her some real eggs instead."

"You seem to know all about keeping hens," said Sylvia.

"I know a little more now, but I made a most dreadfu