where she sat she could see the pride of her
heart--the bed of peonies of her own planting and culture, blooming as
no other peony plot in Glen St. Mary ever did or could bloom, with
peonies crimson, peonies silvery pink, peonies white as drifts of
winter snow.

Susan had on a new black silk blouse, quite as elaborate as anything
Mrs. Marshall Elliott ever wore, and a white starched apron, trimmed
with complicated crocheted lace fully five inches wide, not to mention
insertion to match. Therefore Susan had all the comfortable
consciousness of a well-dressed woman as she opened her copy of the
Daily Enterprise and prepared to read the Glen "Notes" which, as Miss
Cornelia had just informed her, filled half a column of it and
mentioned almost everybody at Ingleside. There was a big, black
headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some
Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing
the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting,
immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital.
Oh, here it was--"Jottings from Glen St. Mary." Susan settled down
keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all possible
gratification from it.

Mrs. Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia--alias Mrs. Marshall
Elliott--were chatting together near the open door that led to the
veranda, through which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing
whiffs of phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from
the vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were
laughing and talking. Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.

There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch,
who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked
individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only
living thing whom Susan really hated.

All cats are mysterious but Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde--"Doc" for
short--was trebly so. He was a cat of double personality--or else, as
Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil. To begin with, there had
been something uncanny about the very dawn of his existence. Four years
previously Rilla Blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white
as snow, with a saucy black tip to its tail, which she called Jack
Frost. Susan disliked Jack Frost, though she could not or would not
give any valid reason therefor.

"Take my word for it, Mrs. Dr. dear," she was wont to say ominously,
"tha