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“Then why” began the youngest Tabby—and then the door bell rang, and every one said: “Here she is!”

The prim maid announced her, and she took two steps forward, and stood blinking in the gaslight with her hat on one side, and no gloves. Every one noticed that at once.

“Come in, my dear,” said the Aunt, rustling forward. “I have a few friends this afternoon, and—Oh, my gracious, what has happened!”

What had happened was quite simple. In her rustling advance some wandering trail of the Aunt’s black beadiness had caught on the knotted fringe of the table-cloth, and drawn this after her. A mass of silk and lace and ribbon lay sprinkled along the edges of the table where the Tabbies sat; a good store of needles, scissors, and cotton reels mingled with it. Now all this swept to the floor on the moving table-cloth, at the very instant when a rough brownly-black, long-eared person with a sharp nose and very muddy paws bounded into the room, to the full length of his chain. His bound landed him in the very middle of the ribbon-lace-cotton-reel confusion. Judy caught the dog up in her arms, and her apologies