“But is she nice?” I asked.  That was the main question about grown-ups.  Their looks mattered little to us.

“She is lovely.  But she is twenty-nine, you know.  That’s pretty old.  She doesn’t bother me much.  Aunt Janet says that I’d have no bringing up at all, if it wasn’t for her.  Aunt Olivia says children should just be let come up—­that everything else is settled for them long before they are born.  I don’t understand that.  Do you?”

No, we did not.  But it was our experience that grown-ups had a habit of saying things hard to understand.

“What is Uncle Roger like?” was our next question.

“Well, I like Uncle Roger,” said the Story Girl meditatively.  “He is big and jolly.  But he teases people too much.  You ask him a serious question and you get a ridiculous answer.  He hardly ever scolds or gets cross, though, and that is something.  He is an old bachelor.”

“Doesn’t he ever mean to get married?” asked Felix.

“I don’t know.  Aunt Olivia wishes he would, because she’s tired keeping house for him, and she wants to go to Aunt Julia in California.  But she says he’ll never get married, because he is looking for perfection, and when he finds her she won’t have him.”

By this time we were all sitting down on the gnarled roots of the spruces, and the big gray cat came over and made friends with us.  He was a lordly animal, with a silver-gray coat beautifully marked with darker stripes.  With such colouring most cats would have had white or silver feet; but he had four black paws and a black nose.  Such points gave him an air of distinction, and marked him out as quite different from the common or garden variety of cats.  He seemed to be a cat with a tolerably good opinion of himself, and his response to our advances was slightly tinged with condescension.

“This isn’t Topsy, is it?” I asked.  I knew at once that the question was a foolish one.  Topsy, the cat of which father had talked, had flourished thirty years before, and all her nine lives could scarcely have lasted so long.

“No, but it is Topsy’s great-great-great-great-grandson,” said the Story Girl gravely.  “His name is Paddy and he is my own particular cat.  We have barn cats, but Paddy never associates with them.  I am very good friends with all cats.  They are so sleek and comfortable and dignified.  And it is so easy to make them happy.  Oh, I’m so glad you boys have come to live here.  Nothing ever happens here, except days, so we have to make our own good times.  We were short of boys before—­only Dan and Peter to four girls.”

“Four girls?  Oh, yes, Sara Ray.  Felicity mentioned her.  What is she like?  Where does she live?”