73 THE UGLIEST ONE.

keep it in the garden,” said Tom, leaving off whistling for a
moment to speak.

“It’s such a hideous little beast, and so dirty!” added
Gerald.

“But Pll tell you what; put it into the stable and feed it
up. It won’t look so bad in a few days then, perhaps,” said
Tom, eyeing the kitten doubtfully; “and, may be, mother
would let you keep it, or you could give it away.”

“T shouldn't say anything about it at first.”

Ruth wanted to rescue the kitten so much, and so did I,
and so did the boys, though they did not say so, that between
us we made a plan to keep it in the coach-house without
anyone's knowing it for a time; and I-am afraid we forgot that
we ought not to do things without telling father or mother.

“She never fo/d us not to keep a kitten in the coach-house,
you know,” said Ruth slowly.

“IT suppose she didn’t think we should want to,” said I.
“You could not possibly think of a/ the things a person might
want to do and tell them not to do them. You remember when
Tom fried a mushroom on that slate over the gas; when father
smelt the smell, and Tom said nobody had told him not to do
it, father said——”

“But we can tell mother by-and-bye, so perhaps it won’t
matter,” Ruth broke in cheerfully.

Then we agreed to feed kitty when the dogs were fed, and
to get milk for it ‘‘ somehow.”

I think I had it in my head that “ somehow” must mean
going about with the bottle we made liquorice water in for our
doll’s feasts, and filling it in the pantry when cook was not
looking. But as this did not seem a pleasant plan, we thought
that “somehow” when Griffin’s milk was taken up to the stable
we could get some for the kitten too.