cheeks, "for weakly letting himself be used. Sometimes I feel as if my patience is at an end." She stopped, then went on more quietly. "The thing to do is to go abroad. Louis won't live with me in Baltimore. He says all the world would think he was down and out. But if we were in France or Italy, one establishment would do for all us. Neale will marry Sally in June, and she ought to keep him occupied until we get Louis' affairs straight. I've an antique or two I can sell, if necessary, and there's a bunch of bonds in the safe deposit."
"And my pearls." Hildegarde's breath came quick.
Miss Anne shook her head. "We won't be up-stage. We'll do our best for our bounding buccaneer without sacrificing our treasures. If the worst came to worst, there's the crystal cat—she's worth thousands and ought to be shut up in a glass case in a museum. But Louis would rather owe all the trades-people in the world than go into the library and find that space empty. His great-grandfather put the cat there—and there it will stay until the crack o' doom!"
Hildegarde, turning that over in her mind, said, "Things don't mean so much to me. Perhaps because I've always been poor. The most precious thing I had at the farm was a little ship in a bottle. It was made by a seafaring brother of my grandfather and was brought from the East. It always stood on the mantel in the parlor, and I used to go in and look at it. It seemed very wonderful to me. And mother used to tell me then about the crystal cat and the bronze turtle—and they were like something in a fairy tale."
