pped her quite too thin black
stockings under the protecting tin cowl. She reflected, "He has such a
nice, awkward gentleness. But such bad taste! They're really quite good
ankles. Apparently ankles are not done, in Teal bug circles. His sisters
don't even have limbs. But do fairies have sisters? He is a fairy. When
I'm out of the mud he'll turn his raincoat into a pair of lordly white
wings, and vanish. But what will become of the cat?"

Thus her tired brain, like a squirrel in a revolving cage, while she sat
primly and scraped at a clot of rust on a tin plate and watched him put
on the bacon and eggs. Wondering if cats were used for this purpose in
the Daggett family, she put soaked, unhappy Vere de Vere on her feet, to
her own great comfort and the cat's delight. It was an open car, and the
rain still rained, and a strange young man was a foot from her tending
the not very crackly fire, but rarely had Claire felt so domestic.

Milt was apparently struggling to say something. After several bobs of
his head he ventured, "You're so wet! I'd like for you to take my
raincoat."

"No! Really! I'm already soaked through. You keep dry."

He was unhappy about it. He plucked at a button of the coat. She turned
him from the subject. "I hope Lady Vere de Vere is getting warm, too."

"Seems to be. She's kind of demanding. She wanted a little car of her
own, but I didn't think she could keep up with me, not on a long hike."

"A little car? With her paws on the tiny wheel? Oh--sweet! Are you going
far, Mr. Daggett?"

"Yes, quite a ways. To Seattle, Washington."

"Oh, really? Extraordinary. We're going there, too."

"Honest? You driving all the way? Oh, no, of course your father----"

"No, he doesn't drive. By the way, I hope he isn't too miserable back
there."

"I'll be darned. Both of us going to Seattle. That's what they call a
coincidence, isn't it! Hope I'll see you on the road, some time. But I
don't suppose I will. Once you're out of the mud, your Gomez will simply
lose my Teal."

"Not necessarily. You're the better driver. And I shall take it easy.
Are you going to stay long in Seattle?" It was not merely a polite
dinner-payment question. She wondered; she could not place this
fresh-cheeked, unworldly young man so far from his home.

"Why, I kind of hope---- Government railroad, Alaska. I'm going to try
to get in on that, somehow. I've never been out of Minnesota in my life,
but there's couple mountains and oce