nd linen; at least all held such in their hands. The
gathering was in fact a "working party" for the approaching bazaar. But
the real work of bazaars is not done at parties.

"Yes," the Aunt was saying, "so nice for dear Julia. I'm truly glad that
she should begin her visit with a little gaiety. In parting or sorrow we
should always seek to distract the mind, should we not, dear Mrs
Biddle?"

"The young are all too easily distracted by the shows of this world,"
said dear Mrs Biddle heavily.

And several ladies murmured approval.

"But you can't exactly call a church bazaar the shows of this world, can
you?" urged the Aunt, sitting very upright, all black and beady.

"It's the thin end of the Rubicon sometimes," said Mrs Biddle.

"Then why----" began the youngest Tabby--and then the door bell rang,
and every one said: "Here she is!"

The prim maid announced her, and she took two steps forward, and stood
blinking in the gaslight with her hat on one side, and no gloves. Every
one noticed that at once.

"Come in, my dear," said the Aunt, rustling forward. "I have a few
friends this afternoon, and--Oh, my gracious, what has happened!"

What had happened was quite simple. In her rustling advance some
wandering trail of the Aunt's black beadiness had caught on the knotted
fringe of the table-cloth, and drawn this after her. A mass of silk and
lace and ribbon lay sprinkled along the edges of the table where the
Tabbies sat; a good store of needles, scissors, and cotton reels mingled
with it. Now all this swept to the floor on the moving table-cloth, at
the very instant when a rough brownly-black, long-eared person with a
sharp nose and very muddy paws bounded into the room, to the full length
of his chain. His bound landed him in the very middle of the
ribbon-lace-cotton-reel confusion. Judy caught the dog up in her arms,
and her apologies would have melted my heart, or yours, dear reader, in
an instant. But Tabbies are Tabbies, and a bazaar is a bazaar. No more
sewing was done that day; what was left of the afternoon proved all too
short for the disentangling, the partial cleansing of the desecrated
lace-cotton-reel-silk-muddle. And Alcibiades was tied up in the
back-kitchen to the wheel of the patent mangle; he howled without
ceasing.

"My dear," said the Aunt, when tea was over, and the last Tabby had
found her goloshes and gone home in them, "you are most welcome under
any roof of mine, but--(may I ask you to cl