A
_feline_--as Tess says--Napoleon. I long for more worlds to conquer like
Alexander. I dream of great things like Sir Humphrey Davy and Newton.
I--"

"Do be feminine in your comparisons, if not feline," suggested Ruth,
laughing. "Speak of great women, not of great men."

"Oh, indeed! Why, pray? Boadicea? Queen Elizabeth? Joan of Arc--"

"Oh I know who _she_ was," declared Dot, who had been listening,
open-eyed and open-mouthed, to this harangue of the volatile sister.
"She was Noah's wife--and he built a big boat, and put horses and bears
and pigs and goats on it so they wouldn't be drowned--and dogs and cats.
And they were fruitful and multiplied and filled the earth--"

"Oh, oh, oh!" shrieked Agnes. "That child will be the death of me! Where
does she pick up her knowledge of scriptural history?"

"I guess," said Ruth, kissing the pouting lips of Dot, who did not
always take kindly to being laughed at, "that our old Sandyface must
have been one of those cats Noah had. She has found four more little
blind kittens somewhere. And what we shall do about it, I do not know."

Dot and Tess ran squealing to the shed to see the new members of the
Corner House family, while Neale said, chuckling:

"It's a regular _cat_astrophe, isn't it? Better fill the motor car with
feline creatures and let Aggie and me chase around through the country,
dropping cats at farmers' barns."

"Never!" proclaimed Agnes. "We mean to keep on good terms with all the
farmers about Milton. We can't have them coming out and stopping us when
we go by and demanding pay for all the hens you run over, Neale O'Neil."

"Never yet ran over but one hen," declared the boy quickly. "And she was
an old cluck hen--the farmer said so. He thought he really ought to pay
me for killing her. And she made soup at that."

"Come, come, come, children!" admonished Ruth. "Let us get out the books
and see if we have quite forgotten everything we ever knew."

They gathered around the sitting-room lamp, Sammy Pinkney having
appeared. Mrs. MacCall joined them with her mending, as she loved to do
in the evenings. And the Corner House study hour was inaugurated for the
fall with appropriate ceremonies of baked apples on the stove and a
heaping plate of popcorn in the middle of the table.

"I can study so much better when I'm chewing something," Agnes admitted.

Dot was soon nodding and Mrs. MacCall from her low rocking chair
observed:

"I think little folks had bett