"Oh, Patergrey," cried Roberta, springing to meet him, forgetful of her recent disaster and blackened hands, and giving him the caressing title--pronounced as one word--which she had long ago conferred upon him. "Where have you been 'one morning, oh, so early, my beloved, my beloved?'" Rob ended in the refrain of a song she loved. "I went to the post-office, and I stopped at Mrs. Bonell's--she waylaid me," said Mr. Grey. "You're keeping back something!" cried Rob, holding up her forefinger in a reproach that would have been more impressive if the forefinger had been whiter. "He has a basket behind him," cried Prue, darting upon him. "What's in the basket, papa?" "'Ware, Prue! Marked: Fragile. Don't handle," teased her father, holding Prue off with one hand. "Mrs. Bonell is going away." "Where? For long?" asked Mrs. Grey, as Wythie exclaimed: "Oh, I am sorry." "To Europe, for many months," said Mr. Grey. "And I've told her we would take a boarder." "A boarder! Why, Sylvester!" cried his wife. "I really thought you would like this one," said Mr. Grey. "It seemed very hard to say no. You see Mrs. Bonell said there was no one else in whom she would feel sufficient confidence to intrust this boarder to them, and when such a pretty young creature as she is flatters a weak man so, how can he resist? She says she knows we would never fail to the very end of his life to take care of him. She feels sure we are not the cruel sort of folk who would go away and leave him to shift for himself, nor put him out in the cold on winter nights when he had been in the warm house all day, and if he were sick that we would nurse him lovingly, and if he were suffering and past recovery we would chloroform him still more lovingly--in short, that we were ideal guardians of a cat. So I felt obliged to accept a rôle nature had evidently designed us to fill." "A cat! Oh, bless you!" cried three rapturous girl voices, and Wythie added: "It isn't her lovely, white little Billee?" "We have only seven cats taking their meals here now," suggested Mrs. Grey. "My dear, those are humble dependents; of those I hope we shall always have a store, for I want the little grey house to be the asylum for homeless creatures it was in my mother's day," said Mr. Grey, busying himself with the basket-strap. "But a cat, all our own, and one of the family, we have lacked since the day when poor old Nellie Grey went to the reward of cats of blameless character. Yes, Oswyth; this is, indeed, snow-white Billy, and I consider it a great honor that his mistress will intrust us with her pet." Mr. Grey had unfastened the strap by this time, and, lifting the basket-cover, displayed a half-grown kitten, snowy white and odorous of violet sachet, cowering, trembling, with dilated eyes, on the pale blue knitted shawl with which his loving mistress had tried to soften his departure.