Once in a great while there would be an interesting piece of news in the paper. Once she heard something about the President’s pets, and there was a wonderful occasion when there was something worth while in the paper and Sally learned that the President’s wife was fond of pets, and that once, before she was in the White House, she had found a mouse-hole in the room she was in, in some hotel, and had trained the mice and given them food. Sally’s eyes fairly glistened. What a pity that she had not been near that mouse-hole herself! It would have been so easy to catch a tame mouse, and if she caught one, Oxford could never be so scornful again. Sometimes Miss Harvey would put down the paper and she and Miss Winifred would have a friendly chat, and it was at one of these times that Sally learned the piece of news she told Oxford the next day as she and Oxford were sunning themselves on the back porch after an exhausting morning of exercise. ‘I hear that Miss Winifred is going to have a loud speaker,’ she said. ‘I am sorry to hear it,’ said he; ‘there are enough loud speakers around the house as it is. I have sensitive ears.’ ‘Miss Harvey has a sweet voice,’ said Sally, ‘only every one has to talk louder to Miss Winifred, and I suppose she wants some one to talk to her when the others are busy.’ ‘You would do very well for that job,’ said Oxford; ‘for a small cat I never heard such a rasping, powerful voice.’ ‘Yes, Miss Winifred always hears me,’ said Sally. ‘I have a very gentlemanly mew,’ said Oxford; ‘any one would know I had Furbush-Tailby blood just to hear my mew. But, to hear you and not see you, Sally, no one would suspect for a moment that you were a lady.’ ‘They’d know it if they saw me,’ said Sally. ‘Miss Harvey often says I am a perfect little lady.’ ‘I wonder if the loud speaker will be a man or a woman,’ Oxford said. Sally wondered, too, and whenever she was in the parlor and any one called, she listened to the voice of the caller with great interest. One afternoon a gentleman called with a strong, loud voice. He called Miss Mann ‘Cousin Winifred.’ Sally was sure he was the loud speaker and that he had come to stay. After some conversation that did not interest Sally, he fixed his eyes on her as she sat in the corner on her register and he said, ‘You have a cat, I see.’ ‘She isn’t exactly mine,’ said Miss Winifred, ‘but she does me the honor to live in my house; she has a brother who lives here also, and there is another cat, Peter, who thinks he lives with us because he takes all his meals here and sleeps here on cold, stormy nights, but Oxford Gray, Junior, is certain he does not and drives him away.’ At last the conversation was becoming interesting. Sally wondered what the loud speaker would say. She had an idea by the way he had looked at herself that he did not realize the importance of cats.