Puck, half leaning, half sitting, on the stone balustrade, was tenderly
dandling in his arms a huge, vulgar-looking, gray, striped stable-cat,
that rolled and writhed therein in transports of comfort and affection.

"But, indeed, Paul," remonstrated another voice, _tout comme un serin_,
"Pet ought to be whipped instead of hugged! Lily says so."

"Tiger Lily? What a cruel girl! O, my Pettitoes! how can she say so?"

"Why," answered another girlish voice, a little firmer, but hardly less
sweet, than the first, "only think! While we were all in school, he
watched his opportunity and killed the robin that lives in the
crab-apple-tree. The gardener says he heard it cry, and ran with his
hoe; and there was this wicked, horrid, grim, great Pet galloping as
fast as he could gallop to the stable, with its poor little beak
sticking out at one side of his grinning mouth, and its tail at the
other!"

"Why, Pettitoes! how very inconsiderate! You won't serve it so another
time, _will_ you? Though how a robin can have the face to squeak when he
catches it himself at noon, after cramming himself with worms the whole
morning, is more than I can see!"

"O no, Paul! He was singing most sweetly! I heard him; and so did Rose."

"And so did I. He was singing through his nose as bad as Deacon Piper,
because he had a worm in his mouth. He couldn't leave off gobbling one
single minute,--not even to practise his music."

"Let us go out," said Miss Dudley.

We did so. Paul's retreating back was all that was to be seen of the
boy, with Pet's peaceful chin pillowed upon his shoulder, as, borne off
in triumph, he looked calmly back at Lily, who stood shaking her small,
chiselled ivory finger at him. Rose was still beside her, with her arm
around her waist, as if in propitiation.

Two twelve-year-old twins, in twin blue gingham frocks,--they were much
addicted to blue and pink ginghams,--they had that indefinable look of
_blood_ which belonged to their kin, which is sometimes, to be sure, to
be found in families that have no great-grandfathers, after they have
been well-fed, well-read, and well-bred for a generation or two, but to
which they had an uncommonly good right, as their pedigree--so I
afterwards found--ran straight back to the Norman Conquest, without a
single "probably" in it. They were, for their age, tall and slender,
with yet more springy buoyancy than their aunt in _pose_ and movement.
Strangers were always mistaking them for