“I wish you would like me and come out and play, kitty,” she used to say to me sometimes. “I do so like kitties! I never hurt kitties! I’ll give you a ball of string.” There was a fence not far from the house, and it had a sort of ledge on top, and it was a good deal higher than Betty’s head, because she was so very little. She was quite a little thing, only four o’clock. So one morning I crept out from under my porch and jumped on to the top of that fence, and I was there when she came again to peep, and say, “Pretty pussy.” When she caught sight of me she began to laugh and clap her little hands, and jump up and down. “Oh, there’s the kitty,” she said. “There’s my kitty. It has come out its own self. Kitty, kitty, pretty, pretty kitty!” She ran to me, and stood beneath me, looking up with her eyes shining and her pink cheeks full of dimples. She could not reach me, but she was so happy because I had come out that she could scarcely stand still. She coaxed, and called me pretty names, and stood on her tiptoes, stretching her short arm and dimpled hand to try to see if I would let her touch me. “I won’t pull you down, pussy,” she said, “I only want to stroke you. Oh, you pretty kitty!” And I looked down at her, and said, “Meeiou,” gently, just to tell her that I wasn’t very much afraid now, and that when I was a little more used to being outside instead of under the house, perhaps I would play with her. “Mee-iaou!” I said, and I even put out one paw as if I was going to give her a pat, and she danced up and down for joy. My dear little Betty! I wish I could see her again. I cannot understand why she should go away when I loved her so much, and when everybody loved her so much. Oh, how happy we were when I came down from the fence. I did it in three days. She brought some milk and coaxed me, and then she put it on the grass close to the fence and moved away a few steps, and looked at me with such a pretty, imploring look in her pansy eyes that suddenly I made a little leap down and stood on the grass, and began to lap the milk and even to purr! That was the beginning. From that time we played together always. And oh, what a delightful playmate Betty was! And such a conversationalist! She was not a child who thought you must not talk to a kitten because it could not talk back. She had so many things to tell me and show me. And she showed me everything, and explained it all, too. She had a playhouse in a box in a nice grassy, shady place, and she told me all about it, and showed me her teacups and her dolls, and we had tea-parties, with bits of real cake and tiny cups with flowers on them. “They don’t hold much milk, kitty,” she said, “but it’s a dolls’ tea-party, so you must pretend, and I’ll give you a big saucerful afterwards.”