"No, they're not allowed in the house and Jip is so intelligent that she will understand that neither she nor her puppies must touch the kitten."
"How will I get the kitten to her?"
"I can take it in a basket when I go home for the holidays."
"You always do what I hope you will," confessed Marian. "If all the thank-yous I feel were piled up they would reach to the skies."
"I am sure," laughed Miss Dorothy, "nothing could express your gratitude more perfectly. What shall you name the kitten? I think it would please Patty if he came to her with a name already attached to him, a name that you had given him."
Marian sat thinking, then she smiled and her smile grew broader and broader till she broke out with: "I know what to call him; Prince Puff, and I will tell her that he is the fat toad in a new form; he is still under enchantment."
Miss Dorothy laughed, for she knew all about the play under the big tree near the factory. "I think that would please Patty mightily," she told Marian.
"And, isn't it funny," Marian went on, "his name rhymes with Muff. Patty will like that, too. She likes us to have things alike, so I will have Muff and she will have Puff, Muff's brother. I am so relieved to have Patty's present all settled."
But for her beloved Miss Dorothy there was still nothing, so Marian racked her brains to devise some gift. At last she decided that nothing was too good for one she loved so well, and that as the most precious thing she possessed was her father's photograph she must give that to her teacher. So, just before Miss Dorothy took her departure for the holidays she went to her to slip a small package in her hand. On the outside was written: "I am giving you this because I love you so much. A Merry Christmas from Marian." "You mustn't open it till Christmas day," she said earnestly.
"I will not," Miss Dorothy assured her. "Thank you now, dearie, for I am sure whatever it is I shall be pleased to have it. I wish you were going to spend the day with us."