In the kitchen alone was there unhappiness, and there because Dong Ling had already spoiled a whole cake of chocolate in a vain attempt to make Billy's favorite fudge.

Even Spunkie, grown now to be sleek, lazy, and majestically indifferent, was in holiday attire, for a brand-new pink bow of huge dimensions adorned his fat neck--for the first time in many months.
"You see," William had explained to Bertram, "I put on that ribbon again because I thought it would make Spunkie seem more homelike, and more like Spunk.

You know there wasn't anything Billy missed so much as that kitten when she went abroad.

Aunt Hannah said so." "Yes, I know," Bertram had laughed; "but still, Spunkie isn't Spunk, you understand!" he had finished, with a vision in his eyes of Billy as she had looked that first night when she had triumphantly lifted from the green basket the little gray kitten with its enormous pink bow.

This time there was no circuitous journeying, no secrecy in the trip to New York.