rtheless felt sorry for the culprit, and seeing his woe-begone
and tear-stained face pressed close to his chamber window, she wrote the
following on a piece of pasteboard, stood it upright in the basket and
drew it across so that Sammy might read it:

DONT MINE SAmmY WE Ar SORRY
THe CATS AR Al RITE
DOT & TESS

The "_cat_astrophy" as Neale insisted upon calling the accident, threw
some gloom into an otherwise pleasant day--for the little girls at
least. And that evening something else was discovered that sent Dot to
bed in almost as low a state of mind as that with which Sammy Pinkney
retired.

This second unfortunate incident happened after supper, when they were
all gathered in the sitting room, Neale, too, being present. Luke asked
Dot if she had decided upon a name for the new baby.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Luke," the smallest Corner House girl replied. "The
sailor-baby was christened to-day. Didn't you know!"

"I hadn't heard about it," he confessed. "What is he called?"

Dot told him proudly. And Tess said:

"Don't you think it is a pretty name? Dot found it all her own self. It
was painted on a barn."

"What's that?" asked Neale suddenly. "What was painted on a barn?"

"The sailor-baby's name," Dot said proudly. "'Nosmo King Kenway.'"

"On a barn!" repeated the puzzled Neale. "Whose barn?"

When he learned that it was Mr. Stout's tobacco barn he looked rather
funny and asked several other questions of the little girls.

Then he drew a sheet of paper toward him and with a pencil printed
something upon it, which he passed to Agnes. She burst into laughter at
once, and passed the paper on.

"What is it?" Dot asked curiously. "Is it a funny picture he's drawed?"

"It's funnier than a picture," laughed Luke, who had taken a squint at
the paper. "I declare, isn't that a good one!"

"I don't think you folks are very polite," Tess said, rather haughtily,
for the others were not going to show the paper to the little girls. On
the sheet Neale had arranged the letters of the new baby's name as they
were meant to be read--for he knew what was painted upon the inside of
the doors of Mr. Stout's barn:

NO SMOKING

Ruth, however, would not let the joke go on. She took Dot up on her lap
and explained kindly how the mistake had been make. For Nosmo _was_ a
pretty name; nobody could deny it. And, of course, King sounded
particularly aristocratic.

Nevertheless, Dot there and then dropped the sailor-baby's fancy