"That provoking little wildcat is out of her cage again!" she exclaimed, stopping to look all around. "Here, Matilda, kitty, kitty, where are you?" In response to her call, what seemed to be the gentlest of house-kittens came bounding through the grass. Thinking it would be less trouble to take it along than to carry it back to its cage in the woodshed when she was in such a great hurry, Mary caught it up in her arms, and once more started down the road, one hand slipped through the handle of the basket. It snuggled down against her shoulder, purring loudly. "You ridiculous little atom!" laughed Mary. "I wonder what the girls at Warwick Hall would say if they could see me going along carrying a live _wildcat_. That will be something wild and Texasy for me to put in my next letters. I needn't say that it weighs only twenty ounces, and that if it wasn't for its bow legs and funny little bobbed tail and spotted stomach one would think it was just a tame, ordinary, domestic pussy. But you'll be savage enough by and bye, won't you? When the tassels grow on your ear-tips and your whiskers spread out wide and your spots get big and tigery!" Two soft paws reached up to tap her face, and she gave the furry ball in her arms an affectionate squeeze. She had never cared especially for kittens, but this little wild one with its coquettish ways had wonderfully ingratiated itself into her affections in the week she had owned it. Mrs. Barnaby had brought it in from the ranch. Cousin Sammy had found eight of them in the woods after Pedro had killed the old mother cat, caught in the act of carrying off one of the turkeys. This was the only one that lived. Mrs. Barnaby could not keep it, because, tiny as it was, it toddled around after the chickens and put even the big Plymouth Rock hens to flight. So she brought it in to Mary, and Mary, feeling particularly forlorn that day, welcomed the little orphan, because its lonely state gave them a bond in common. The day it came happened to be her eighteenth birthday, with nothing to mark it as a gala occasion except a handkerchief from her mother and a string of trout from Norman. He had gone out before daylight to catch them for her breakfast. Joyce's present did not arrive until the next day, and the round-robin letter from Warwick Hall was nearly a week late. Not until after the sorority was seated at its annual St. Patrick's Day dinner, did they recall the double celebration they had had the year before. The letter was written then and there, passing around the table with the bonbons, that each one present might add a birthday greeting. Then Dorene, to whom it was entrusted, forgot to post it for several days. It was a joy when it did come, but the anniversary itself, before the letter reached her, was a disappointing day.