Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/270

240 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.

And as she read, everything faded away from before her. . . the barn, Molly, the kittens. . . she saw nothing but the words on the page.

When she had read the letter through she got up quickly, oh ever so quickly! and went away down the stairs. Molly hardly noticed she had gone, so absorbing and delightful were the kittens.

Betsy went out of the dusky barn into the rich, October splendor and saw none of it. She