with the pretty hand at the slimmer end of it, groped in a dark shelter
beneath her couch to make a selection, merely by her well-experienced
sense of touch, from a frilled white box that lay in concealment there.
Then, bringing forth a crystalline violet become scented sugar, or a bit
of fruit translucent in hardened sirup, she would delicately set it on
the way to that attractive dissolution hoped for it by the wistful
donor--and all without removing her shadowy eyes from the little volume
and its patient struggle for dignified rhymes with "Julia." Florence
was no longer in her beautiful relative's thoughts.

Florence was idly in the thoughts, however, of Mrs. Balche, the
next-door neighbour to the south. Happening to glance from a bay-window,
she negligently marked how the child walked to the front gate, opened
it, paused for a moment's meditation, then hurled the gate to a vigorous
closure, herself remaining within its protection. "Odd!" Mrs. Balche
murmured.

Having thus eloquently closed the gate, Florence slowly turned and moved
toward the rear of the house, quickening her steps as she went, until at
a run she disappeared from the scope of Mrs. Balche's gaze, cut off by
the intervening foliage of Mr. Atwater's small orchard. Mrs. Balche felt
no great interest; nevertheless, she paused at the sound of a boy's
voice, half husky, half shrill, in an early stage of change. "What she
say, Flor'nce? D'she say we could?" But there came a warning "_Hush
up_!" from Florence, and then, in a lowered tone, the boy's voice said:
"Look here; these are mighty funny-actin' cats. I think they're kind of
crazy or somep'n. Kitty Silver's fixed a washtub full o' suds for us."

Mrs. Balche was reminded of her own cat, and went to give it a little
cream. Mrs. Balche was a retired widow, without children, and too timid