y was
away, she had seen him go with her own eyes. It would be interesting
to see his home. Or perhaps the picture Mary Rose had described, a
sleeping cat with a fern at his head and asters at his feet, was
alluring. Whichever it was she allowed Mary Rose to lead her in at the
side door, through the dining-room that seemed far too large for only
Mr. Jerry and his Aunt Mary, into the big living-room that had begun
life as a front and back parlor. There on the wide window seat was the
self-supporting cat, George Washington himself, with a fern spreading
its feathery fronds above his head and a cluster of red asters in a
brass bowl at his tall. George Washington had calculated the amount of
space between the jardiniere and the bowl to a nicety. There was not
the fraction of an inch to spare.

[Illustration: "There on the wide window seat was the self-supporting
cat."]

"There!" Mary Rose pointed a proud finger as she stopped before the
window.

"He is a beauty," Miss Thorley was honest enough to say. Her sense of
color was delighted at the play of sunshine on George Washington's gray
overcoat which had caught a warm glow from the red asters. "Wake him
up, Mary Rose. You really can't see a cat asleep any more than you can
a baby."

"Shall I?" Mary Rose would never in the world have disturbed a
sleeping baby and for the same reason she hesitated before a sleeping
cat. And while she hesitated Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary came in and their
voices woke George Washington. He sprang up, artfully eluding bowl and
ferns, and stood in the sunlight stretching himself. He looked at Mary
Rose and at Miss Thorley and at Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary with his calm
yellow eyes.

"That's a lot better than waking him," Mary Rose clapped her hands. "I
can't bear to waken anyone for fear of interrupting a dream.
Sometimes," she went on thoughtfully, "I'd give most anything to know
what's inside of George Washington's mind. He looks so wise. Isn't he
splendid?" she asked Miss Thorley, who had flushed uncomfortably when
Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary came in and who now was standing rather stiffly
conscious, wishing with all her heart she had never come. Mary Rose
caught her cat and brought him to Miss Thorley. "You tell her how
self-supporting he is?" she asked Mr. Jerry's Aunt Mary in a voice that
reeked with pride.

"I think I can tell that story better than Aunt Mary." And lo and
behold, there was Mr. Jerry himself in the doorway, an u