Sure enough. Patsy gave a winsome little purr and ran up to Anne’s outstretched hand, as if to welcome the newcomer, and rubbed against her knee.
“You are a darling!” cried Anne, picking up the roly-poly fellow, who wasn’t so very big after all, being mostly fluff, like an icecream soda. Patsy licked her cheek with his pink tongue. And Anne smiled. It was the first time Nancy had seen her smile, and she thought how pretty Anne could be.
“He is a fairy cat,” announced Nancy. “White cats are always fairies, you know. Look out he doesn’t bewitch you, Anne!”
“Nonsense!” cried Anne, turning up her nose at the words, but stroking Patsy’s fur very gently indeed. She thought Nancy talked in a very silly way about fairy-tales, almost as if she really believed them. She did not yet know that Nancy loved better than anything else to write fairy-tales herself. And if you do a thing like that, you must at least pretend to believe in it.
Already Patsy had made Anne feel that she had a four-footed friend at camp—which may or may not have been bewitchment. Anyway, she scribbled a postscript to the letter which she had been writing:
“P.S. Patsy is the most beautiful cat I ever saw; fine as the one who took the prize in the last cat show, you remember? Only this one is white. I am going to see if I can’t buy him of Nancy Batchelder and bring him home with me when I leave this old camp. I am sure it will be the only thing I shall want to bring away!”
However, this complaining letter of Anne’s was never sent. It remained in her pocket until it graduated from there into the fire-place at Round Robin. For it is a mistake to record your impressions of any place until you have spent at least one whole day and one entire evening there.
That first evening after supper, it being warm and dry, with a young June moon, the Round Robin gathered on the piazza; all but Hugh and Victor who had taken the canoe and had gone out on the water for a little. Perched on the piazza railing, snuggled in the Gloucester hammocks, curled on the grass mats, the Club purred like contented kittens after a good supper. First they played “I’m thinking of something.” But afterward they voted that the night was too beautiful for any game. Down in the pasture the fireflies were flickering. Sweet odors came from trees and grass and water; and sweet sounds. Now and again a little bird chirped away up in a treetop, as if his happy long day was being continued into a nice dream. The sea itself was crooning a gentle tune.
“Sing, Norma!” begged somebody. And though there was no piano or other accompaniment than the noises of out-doors, Norma was willing enough. She had a beautiful voice, full and rich and mellow for a very young girl, and she loved to sing. She began with quaint melodies in Italian, new and lovely things which the others had never heard, and could not wholly understand. Her voice seemed to melt into the night like the wind and water. Then Norma sang old songs in English which they all knew, and in which they all joined, a jolly little chorus. Anne sang as loudly as anybody, there in the dark corner where nobody could see.
Presently the sound of music came from the ocean too, where they could just spy the red canoe gliding by in the moonlight.