CHAPTER VII.
KITTY'S FOSTER-FATHER.
Tweedles and I were excused from the Gym exercises that afternoon with the request that we meet Miss Peyton in her office at three o'clock. We were there on time, you may be sure, and Dee had the kitty all done up in a shoe box ready for the trip. We had christened him Oliver Twist, because he kept on "hollering for more" all the weary night.
Miss Peyton laughed until the tears rolled down her cheeks over the description of our trials during the night. When we found out that she did not think it was so terribly wicked of Dee, we felt we could tell her everything, even the middy ties over the transom and the fleas in Dee's bed.
"You poor girls must be nearly dead, aren't you?" she asked kindly.
"Page and I feel right scrooch-eyed, but after the first feeding, Dum slept through it all," laughed Dee. "I have more sympathy than ever for poor Zebedee. That's what we call our Father, you know, Miss Peyton. He had to bring up Dum and me on bottles as our little Mother died when we were tiny babies. If one kitten could keep two girls awake most of the night heating milk for it, don't you fancy two twins, like Dum and me, could keep one man awake all the time?"
"Didn't you have a nurse?" I asked.
"Of course we did, all kinds and colors, but Dum and I wouldn't drink unless Zebedee gave us the bottles. He says he was afraid the nurse might not be sanitary and trusted no one but himself to fix the milk."