Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/169

Rh dusk began to fall, and loomed up bigger and bigger as though it reached to the sky. It was no wonder houses looked small from its top. Betsy ate the last of her sugar, looking up at the quiet giant there, towering grandly above her. There was no lump in her throat now. And, although she still thought she did not know what in the world Cousin Ann meant by saying that about Hemlock Mountain and her examination, it's my opinion that she had made a very good beginning of an understanding.

She was just picking up her cup to take it back to the sap-house when Shep growled a little and stood with his ears and tail up, looking down the road. Something was coming down that road in the blue, clear twilight, something that was making a very queer noise. It sounded almost like somebody crying. It was somebody crying! It was a child crying. It was a little, little girl. . . . Betsy could see her now. . . stumbling along and crying as though her heart would break. Why, it was little Molly, her own particular charge at school, whose