Her aunt nodded. "We'll have to find someone to take care of him—just for a while," she added quickly as she saw two big tears in Mary Rose's blue eyes. "Some day, please God, we'll have a home where we can have him with us."
Mary Rose stood very still, trying in vain to understand this strange world to which she had come, a world where children and cats and dogs were not considered precious and desirable. Suddenly a bell rang.
"That's Mrs. Rawson," murmured Aunt Kate. "I'll bet she wants me to run up an' look at her windows again. I'll be right back, Mary Rose," she promised as she hurried away to answer the insistent jangle of Mrs. Rawson's bell.
CHAPTER III
Left alone, Mary Rose caught George Washington to her heart and stood staring about the room. She shook her head. This might be a beautiful palace but she was very much afraid that she was not going to like it. She walked slowly into the next room and then to the kitchen, whose windows faced the alley.
Across the driveway she could see a broad open space, the yard of a rambling old-fashioned house. A man was cleaning an automobile and through the open window Mary Rose could hear his cheery whistle. There was something about the old-fashioned house and the spacious yard that reminded Mary Rose of Mifflin, where people loved children and had pets. The puzzled frown left her face, and clutching George Washington closer she went out of the back door and across the alley.
"If you please," she said, her heart beating so fast that she was almost choked, "would you take a cat to board?"
She had to say it a second time before the man heard her. He looked up in surprise. He had a frank, pleasant face with twinkling eyes and Mary Rose liked him at once.
"Hullo, brother," he said, quite as cordially as a Mifflin man would have spoken. "And where did you drop from?"