Page:Dorothy Canfield - Understood Betsy.djvu/59

Rh they let her eat. All she wanted! She had never heard of such a thing!

They still did not ask her how she had "stood the trip." They did not indeed ask her much of anything or pay very much attention to her beyond filling her plate as fast as she emptied it. In the middle of the meal Eleanor came, jumped into her lap, and curled down, purring. After this Elizabeth Ann kept one hand on the little soft ball, handling her fork with the other.

After supper—well, Elizabeth Ann knew what did happen after supper until she felt somebody lifting her and carrying her up-stairs. It was Cousin Ann, who carried her as lightly as though she were a baby, and who said, as she sat down on the floor in a slant-ceilinged bedroom, "You went right to sleep with your head on the table. I guess you're pretty tired."

Aunt Abigail was sitting on the edge of a great wide bed with four posts, and a curtain around the top. She was partly undressed,