In the afternoons when Tom was at work Mary sometimes gave tea parties for the neighborhood cats. She set a footstool with doll cups and saucers. She gathered the cats, and there were plenty of them, and then she held long and detailed conversations with them. It was a kind of play she enjoyed very much—a kind of satiric game and it covered and concealed from Mary the fact that she didn’t have very nice clothes and the Talbots didn’t have any money.
