nd plumped him down in the doll carriage and the two girls began to
talk as they wheeled the carriage toward the house. Nellie was
relating to Kittie all that had happened since she saw her last,
including the coming to her house of the goat, dog and cat, while
Kittie talked so fast Nellie could not answer one question before she
had asked two or three more. But neither of them noticed as all they
wished was to talk, not to listen, anyway.

Button found the soft pillow in the doll carriage very comfortable and
the motion made him sleepy, so he curled himself up a little tighter
and went sound asleep. Had he known what they were planning to do, he
never would have risked that, but would have jumped out and ran away.
For these two little girls were planning to dress him up in doll
clothes and play baby with him! Now that was one thing the dignified,
independent Button could not stand. He had been used to play baby
when a young cat, and he hated it. He had also made a vow that the
very next person who tried to dress him up in doll clothes or any
other clothes would be scratched for their pains.

All the way up the garden path the two girls discussed how they would
dress him as well as what they would put on Bella. Button had been so
sound asleep he had not heard a word. When the children left him
asleep in the carriage to go after the clothes, he awoke and looking
around spied a beautiful big cat with gray eyes looking down at him
from the limb of a tree directly over his head.

"How do you do, Miss Beauty?" meowed Button when he had both eyes open
and his thoughts collected enough to speak.

"I am pretty well. How are you, Mr. Impertinence?" Bella meowed back,
for as you have guessed, this beautiful cat was none other than
Kittie's pet, the belle of all the cats in that neighborhood, Miss
Bella Angora Mead, to give you her full name.

"Come down and rest on this soft cushion beside me where we can talk
without my having to crane my neck to look at you," Button invited.

"No, I can't. You better come up here unless you want to be tortured
by being buttoned into a pink gingham doll dress and having a bonnet
tied on your head. I heard the girls talking over what they were going
to do to you and me, so I ran up here where they could not get at me.
They will never think to look up here but will hunt all over the barn
and wood piles for us, and perhaps even go down cellar, but look up a
tree they never will."

"If that