Elizabeth Ann sat on
the wooden chair, her feet hanging (she had been taught that it was not
manners to put her feet on the rungs), looking about her with miserable,
homesick eyes. What an ugly, low-ceilinged room, with only a couple of
horrid kerosene lamps for light; and they didn't keep any girl,
evidently; and they were going to eat right in the kitchen like poor
people; and nobody spoke to her or looked at her or asked her how she
had "stood the trip"; and here she was, millions of miles away from Aunt
Frances, without anybody to take care of her. She began to feel the
tight place in her throat which, by thinking about hard, she could
always turn into tears, and presently her eyes began to water.
Aunt Abigail was not looking at her at all, but she now stopped short in
one of her rushes to the table, set down the butter-plate she was
carrying, and said "There!" as though she had forgotten something. She
stooped--it was perfectly amazing how spry she was--and pulled out from
under the stove a half-grown kitten, very sleepy, yawning and
stretching, and blinking its eyes. "There, Betsy!" said Aunt Abigail,
putting the little yellow and white ball into the child's lap. "There is
one of old Whitey's kittens that didn't get given away last summer, and
she pesters the life out of me. I've got so much to do. When I heard you
were coming, I thought maybe you would take care of her for me.
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