"Are you sure it will be as good a mouser and as sweet-tempered and as pretty?" demanded Mr. Morris. "I wouldn't want to be disappointed."

The twins a.s.sured him that all the kittens were lovely and that gave him another thought. He wanted to know how many there were.

"Seven," said Twaddles, "and Mother said seven are too many to keep."

"I agree with your mother," Mr. Morris said. "And I believe, if you go to see my sister, Mrs. Tracy, that she will be glad to take a kitten; she's expecting her little grandson to come for a visit next week and she would be glad to have a pet ready for him. You know where Mrs.

Tracy lives, don't you? Over on Hammond Square?"

Twaddles and Dot knew, and they hurried over to Hammond Square eagerly. Sure enough, Mrs. Tracy was glad to have a kitten, and like her brother, she wanted to keep the "sample." But when matters were explained to her and she understood that she could have her kitten that afternoon, she was quite satisfied.

"That makes two," said Dot, as they went down the steps.

Finding homes for the five other kittens wasn't so easy. The twins went to every house where they knew any one and some of these people already had cats and others didn't want any cats. But they listened politely, though they always laughed, and some of them told the twins of friends who might be glad to have a kitten.

The poor little "sample" was growing quite rough looking and frowsy, from being pulled in and out of Twaddles' coat so many times, and it was almost noon when they had disposed of all but one cat.

"Let's go ask Miss Alder," suggested Dot as they pa.s.sed a handsome house set in a circle of evergreen trees.

"She'll chase us," Twaddles argued. "She can't stand children--they make her nervous."

Dot had heard this, too--Miss Alder was a wealthy and elderly woman who lived alone except for two maids. She didn't have much to do with her neighbors and she had nothing at all to do with the children in Oak Hill. She didn't like them and most of them were afraid of her.

"You needn't come, if you don't want to, but I'm going to ask her,"

said Dot, turning in at the path which led to the white doorway of the Alder house.

"Well--I'll come--you'll need to show her the sample," Twaddles murmured, wondering what made his knees feel so queer.

CHAPTER XVII

MISS ALDER'S HOUSE

Dot rang the bell and waited quietly, but Twaddles kept hopping up and down the steps. He was down, when the door opened suddenly and he was so afraid Dot would go in and leave him outside that he rushed up the steps, two at a time, and the maid nearly shut the door in his face.

"Go away, boy!" she said distinctly. "We don't allow boys around here."

This was discouraging, but Dot refused to be dismayed.

"I'm a girl," she stated firmly. "Could I see Miss Alder?"

"Well--I'll ask," the maid answered. "Wait a minute." And she closed the door.

"Mother says it is very rude to keep any one waiting at the door,"

whispered Dot. "She always asks 'em in."

"You can come in," the maid announced, opening the door before Twaddles could answer Dot. "But the boy will have to wait."

"He has to come, too--he has the sample," said Dot, who had no intention of going into a strange house alone.

"Are you selling something?" the maid demanded. "It won't do you any good to see Miss Alder if you're selling something; she won't look at samples."

"For goodness' sake, Agnes, are you going to stand there at the door all day?" said some one. "Either come in and close the door or go outside and finish your conversation."

Dot glanced up and saw a face peering over the maid's shoulder. She saw dark eyes and white hair and a rather grim mouth. But Dot smiled her friendly little smile and spoke clearly.

"How do you do, Miss Alder?" she said, as composedly as Meg would have said it. "Don't you want a little kitten? We're trying to find homes for them and we have--all but one."

Now Miss Alder liked cats and she found herself liking Dot. But she couldn't unbend all at once.

"Are you sure your feet are clean?" she asked crisply. "Well, then, come in, both of you. I can't stand all this cold air. Come into the sitting room and tell me what you call it you are doing."

Twaddles and Dot followed her into a pleasant sunny room, with a fireplace in which a fire was merrily blazing. Miss Alder's chair was by the window and she pointed to a sofa nearby.

"Sit down there and keep your feet on that rug," she directed the twins. "If there is one thing I cannot stand it is to have my floors tracked up. Now what were you trying to tell me about a kitten?"

Twaddles pulled the little tiger kitten out of his coat and held it toward her.

"That's the sample," he said gravely. "We had seven of them--Meg and Bobby brought them home, because Mr. Fritz was going to have them drowned."

"And you've been going around, trying to get homes for them?" said Miss Alder approvingly. "Why, I think that is very kind of you. Could you find people who would give them homes?"

Twaddles told her where they had been and what the people had said, and all the time he talked Miss Adler was stroking the kitten which she had taken on her lap. She asked a great many questions and she did not laugh at all. She was most serious, and when she had heard the whole story, she said that she thought they were just as good as they could be.

"Most children wouldn't go to so much trouble," she said. "Why, you are friends worth having--and I should like a kitten very much indeed.

Why don't you let me keep this one?"

Twaddles looked uncertainly at Dot.

"It's the sample," he said uneasily.

"You mean it _was_ the sample," Miss Alder corrected. "If you have six kittens promised, you don't need any more samples; and if you leave this one here with me, why, that will be one delivered and will save you that much extra trouble. Besides, I particularly like tiger cats."

The twins saw how sensible this was, and they agreed to leave the kitten. Then Miss Alder showed them her pets--she had canaries and goldfish and a white poodle dog who seemed to like the kitten very much, though it humped up its back and spit at him and would have nothing to do with him.

"They'll be friends in less than a week," Miss Alder declared comfortably.

The noon whistle reminded Dot and Twaddles that they would be late for lunch and they hurried off, but not before Miss Alder had asked them to come and see her again.

"You'll want to see how the kitten grows," she told them.

Meg and Bobby were home from school before the twins arrived and the family were just sitting down to lunch. They had explained to their mother and their Aunt Polly that Miss Mason had put off the practicing of the Thanksgiving songs until the next day.

"So we ate the lunch that Norah put up for us at recess, Mother; and we can eat the regular lunch now," said Meg.

"The kittens are one short," said Bobby as soon as the twins came in sight. "Meg and I went out and counted them."