“What a dear room!” Ruth said involuntarily as she stepped across the threshold, and, as if to welcome the little mistress, the andirons gleamed brightly, the polished teakettle shone with all its might, and a capacious couch heaped with pillows and covered with a gay Bagdad looked so comfortable that Ruth longed to try it at once.  She couldn’t resist the temptation to peep into the desk which stood in the comer, and she oh-ed with delight over the dainty paper and the pretty silver penholder with her name engraved on it.

“I suppose you must belong to me, you dear room,” she said half aloud, “but I didn’t think that I should have such a pretty one.”

She looked at the desk with great satisfaction.  She opened the little drawers and found to her surprise that one was filled with foreign note-paper in delicate blue.  “Just what I want for my letters to papa,” she thought with a little sigh, “and it was so thoughtful of them to get blue, for that will express my feelings so much better.”

“It’s quite like having a fairy godmother,” she said aloud, as her eye took in a carved book-rack filled with books, and wandered to the pretty tea-table where a tall chocolate pot seemed to proclaim that nothing so harmful as tea should be taken by the girls who might make merry there.

“She’s every bit as nice as a fairy god-mother,” said a gay voice, and Ruth turned suddenly to see standing in the doorway a plump, red-haired girl with a fuzzy black kitten nestling on her shoulder.

“On, you are Betty, I know,” cried Ruth, much to the astonishment of her guest.

“I am, but I don’t see how you knew,” answered Betty, opening her brown eyes very wide.

“Oh, the fairy godmother wrote me about you,” laughed Ruth, “and I’ve looked at your picture at intervals all the way on from Chicago.”

“Then you know Charlotte and Dorothy, too, and we shan’t seem like strangers,” said Betty with great satisfaction.  “I live just across the street, and I saw you come and knew Mrs. Hamilton had gone in town, so I thought I’d run over and see you.”

Ruth smiled gratefully.  “I’m glad you did, for I do feel just a bit lonesome.  What a darling kitten,” she continued, stroking the soft head as the black mite blinked sleepily at her and stretched out a tiny paw.

“I thought I’d bring him over,” said Betty, “because kittens are such a comfort to me, and I hoped you liked them, too.  Mrs. Hamilton says you may have a kitten if you want one, and I thought this one would look so well on your white rug that I chose him.”

“Is he really for me?” cried Ruth as she took him gently in her arms and sat down on the rug.  “You couldn’t have brought me anything I should have liked better.  I had to give away my kitten when I left home and I had begun to miss the dear thing already.”

“I told the girls I was sure you liked kittens,” said Betty triumphantly, “and now I shall crow over them, for they are always laughing at me for liking them so much.  Charlotte says that a kitten is my trade-mark.”