Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/269

Rh 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