This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

fore they need return to the steamer, and Uncle Felix thought it might be cool at the Aquarium, which was not far away.

I well remember (said Jellicoe) when they arrived, because of all the many children at the Aquarium that afternoon those two were the most smallandactive. They both had observant blue eyes, and little cotton pinafores, and large straw hats with little holes in the crown for ventilation. I was strolling about near the turtle tank when they rushed up to me and said I was theirs. Sistina, who was only two and a half, seriously thought I was her own cat from Baltimore, and it was difficult for me to persuade her otherwise. Then Uncle Felix, who had the anxious air of a parent who has been through a good deal, and has more ahead of him, spoke to me very politely. I could see at once that he was a man who understood cats.

"Since you have taken such a fancy to the smallandactive girls," he said, "perhaps you would keep an eye on them for a few moments so that Aunt Isabel and I can look at the fish."

It was not a question of my having taken a fancy to them; it was they who had taken a fancy to me. They were both embracing me at