Just then I detested Max . I got up and said I was going to get some milk for Fatima . I found Ismay in a rage in the kitchen . She had been up in the garret , and a mouse had run across her foot . Mice always get on Ismay 's nerves . `` We need a cat badly enough , '' she fumed , `` but not a useless , pampered thing , like Fatima . That garret is literally swarming with mice . You 'll not catch me going up there again . '' Fatima did not prove such a nuisance as we had feared . Huldah Jane liked her , and Ismay , in spite of her declaration that she would have nothing to do with her , looked after her comfort scrupulously . She even used to get up in the middle of the night and go out to see if Fatima was warm . Max came in every day and , being around , gave us good advice . Then one day , about three weeks after Aunt Cynthia 's departure , Fatima disappeared -- just simply disappeared as if she had been dissolved into thin air . We left her one afternoon , curled up asleep in her basket by the fire , under Huldah Jane 's eye , while we went out to make a call . When we came home Fatima was gone . Huldah Jane wept and was as one whom the gods had made mad . She vowed that she had never let Fatima out of her sight the whole time , save once for three minutes when she ran up to the garret for some summer savory . When she came back the kitchen door had blown open and Fatima had vanished . Ismay and I were frantic . We ran about the garden and through the out-houses , and the woods behind the house , like wild creatures , calling Fatima , but in vain .
Then Ismay sat down XXXXX the front doorsteps and cried .
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