"Oh, but she doesn't know Spunk," Billy had observed then, hopefully.
"You just wait until she knows him."

Mrs. Stetson began to "know" Spunk the next day. The immediate source of
her knowledge was the discovery that Spunk had found her ball of black
knitting yarn, and had delightedly captured it. Not that he was content
to let it remain where it was--indeed, no. He rolled it down the stairs,
batted it through the hall to the drawing-room, and then proceeded to
'chasse' with it in and out among the legs of various chairs and tables,
ending in one grand whirl that wound the yarn round and round his small
body, and keeled him over half upon his back. There he blissfully went
to sleep.

Billy found him after a gleeful following of the slender woollen trail.
Mrs. Stetson was with her--but she was not gleeful.

"Oh, Aunt Hannah, Aunt Hannah," gurgled Billy, "isn't he just too cute
for anything?"

Aunt Hannah shook her head.

"I must confess I don't see it," she declared. "My dear, just look at
that hopeless snarl!"

"Oh, but it isn't hopeless at all," laughed Billy. "It's like one of
those strings they unwind at parties with a present at the end of it.
And Spunk is the present," she added, when she had extricated the small
gray cat. "And you shall hold him," she finished, graciously entrusting
the sleepy kitten to Mrs. Stetson's unwilling arms.