“Well,” said Mrs. Owen, “if she is so anxious to live at the other house and they want to keep her, suppose we let them have her? The other day when I called, Mrs. Carter told me how fond her little girl was of her, and the child hasn’t been well.”
“Give up Lady Jane!” cried Peggy in dismay.
“Mother, what are you thinking of!” said Alice. “She’s one of the family. Would you give me up if I kept going back to the Carters’?”
“Certainly not; but that is entirely different.”
“I love Lady Jane just as much as you love me, mother,” said Alice.
“That is impossible. Don’t talk such nonsense,” said her mother.
It seemed an extreme statement, even to Peggy. “Do you love her as much as you love mother?” she asked.
Alice paused to consider.
“Don’t ask her such a trying question, Peggy. She would probably find it a little less convenient to live without me than without the cat; but if you children care so much about her you can go and get her. It is too much to expect them to send her back again.”
Mrs. Owen telephoned to Mrs. Carter and found that the cat had been spending the afternoon with them.