"I've got a ..." she
began, but Betsy did not let her finish.
"Come here, Molly, quick! QUICK!" she called, beckoning eagerly, as
though the kittens might evaporate into thin air if Molly didn't get
there at once. Molly forgot what she was going to say, climbed madly up
the steep pile of hay, and in a moment was lying flat on her stomach
beside the little family in a spasm of delight that satisfied even Betsy
and Eleanor, both of them convinced that these were the finest kittens
the world had ever seen.
"See, there are two," said Betsy. "You can have one for your very own.
And I'll let you choose. Which one do you like best?"
She was hoping that Molly would not take the little all-gray one,
because she had fallen in love with that the minute she saw it.
"Oh, THIS one with the white on his breast," said Molly, without a
moment's hesitation. "It's LOTS the prettiest! Oh, Betsy! For my very
own?"
Something white fell out of the folds of her skirt on the hay. "Oh,
yes," she said indifferently. "A letter for you. Miss Ann told me to
bring it out here. She said she saw you streaking it for the barn."
It was a letter from Aunt Frances. Betsy opened it, one eye on Molly to
see that she did not hug her new darling too tightly, and began to read
it in the ray of dusty sunlight slanting in through a crack in the side
of the barn. She could do this easily, because Aunt Frances always made
her handwriting very large and round and clear, so that a little girl
could read it without half trying.
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