re soft," admitted Ralph. "Don't you think so?"

"I don't know. I never had a little cat."

"Never had a kitten?" cried Ralph. "You poor, defrauded child! What
kind of a kitten would you like best?"

"A little grey cat," said Araminta, seriously, "a little grey cat with
blue eyes, but Aunt Hitty would never let me have one."

"See here," said Ralph. "Aunt Hitty isn't running this show. I'm
stage manager and ticket taker and advance man and everything else, all
rolled into one. I can't promise positively, because I'm not posted on
the cat supply around here, but if I can find one, you shall have a
grey kitten with blue eyes, and you shall have some kind of a kitten,
anyhow."

"Oh!" cried Araminta, her eyes shining. "Truly?"

"Truly," nodded Ralph.

"Would--would--" hesitated Araminta--"would it be any more than four
dollars and a half if you brought me the little cat? Because if it is,
I can't----"

"It wouldn't," interrupted Ralph. "On any bill over a dollar and a
quarter, I always throw in a kitten. Didn't you know that?"

"No," answered Araminta, with a happy little laugh. How kind he was,
eyen though he was a man! Perhaps, if he knew how wicked her mother
had been, he would not be so kind to her. The stern Puritan conscience
rose up and demanded explanation.

"I--I--must tell you," she said, "before you bring me the little cat.
My mother--she--" here Araminta turned her crimson face away. She
swallowed a lump in her throat, then said, bravely: "My mother was
married!"

Doctor Ralph Dexter laughed--a deep, hearty, boyish laugh that rang
cheerfully through the empty house. "I'll tell you something," he
said. He leaned over and whispered in her ear; "So was mine!"

Araminta's tell-tale face betrayed her relief. He knew the worst
now--and he was similarly branded. His mother, too, had been an
outcast, beyond Aunt Hitty's pale. There was comfort in the thought,
though Araminta had been taught not to rejoice at another's misfortune.

Ralph strolled off down the hill, his hands in his pockets, for the
moment totally forgetting the promised kitten. "The little saint," he
mused, "she's been kept in a cage all her life. She doesn't know
anything except what the dragon has taught her. She looks at life with
the dragon's sidewise squint. I'll open the door for her," he
continued, mentally, "for I think she's worth saving. Hope to Moses
and the prophets I don't forget that cat."

No susp