That was all there was of incident, and Dr. Carver was so absent-minded, letting one recitation after another pass without comment or correction, that the girls dared to let their own minds wander from the text long enough to wonder what was the matter. “Cat and all and the Doctor scarcely mad!” Lilian whispered as the class left the room. “She didn’t even read the card!” “She must have had a legacy or something.” “Perhaps a letter from her lover.” “Lover! Her!” was the reply to this, ungrammatical but vigorous. “I wish he’d write oftener, then!” Later, from suite 52, where the arch conspirators had assembled, came shrieks of laughter. Isabel was one who could appreciate a joke even on herself. “Honestly, girls, it was the funniest thing I ever saw. She was like a different woman. I sat by the table, reading, of course, and only Ellen and two other girls were in there. And just as the first bell rang, who should come in but Der Herr Professor! You know how he looks, all frowzy and wild, with his spectacles and that high collar! Well, he went over to the German alcove and began to pull out the books in a hurry. Presto, appeared Dr. Carver, and bless you, didn’t he start toward her all beaming and nodding, with his hands full of books! “‘My dear Doctor Garver,’”—here some of the girls nearly doubled up at Isabel’s imitation (she was taking expression). “‘I have found dose texts ve vere gommenting on last night.’ Then they went on with such a spiel as you never heard! Dr. Carver looked real human, you know, and the old Dutchman—’scuse me, Cathalina, also your Holland ancestors,—_Deutchman_,—looked at her as if she was the only understanding soul he’d met since he landed.” “Very likely she is,” remarked Hilary. “I need not have worried. They never even _saw_ me there! I wish you had seen her coquettish look as she flirted out of the room when the second gong rang.” Isabel adjusted an imaginary pair of glasses and looked over her shoulder. “‘So kind of you, Professor Schafer.’ It was a shame for Ellen and me to enjoy it all to ourselves!” “So your jokes kind of fell flat?” asked Hilary with a mischievous look. “Yes,” answered Isabel, “after all our trouble to find that kitten, and me coaxin’ Cathalina half a day more or less!” “But maybe we’ve started a real romance,” suggested Eloise. “What did you do with the kitty?” asked Cathalina. “It’s all right. Dotty Banks, one of the little girls, was to watch for it and take it back if necessary, and she showed me a long fresh scratch it gave her, so I guess she caught it all right!” “I’m glad it turned out as it did,” said Cathalina later, as she and Hilary were at their lessons. “We aren’t allowed to play practical jokes at home. If it had—a—mortified her at all, I’d have felt guilty, although,” and here Cathalina’s lips set firmly a moment,—“she deserves ’most anything for the way she does in class.”