Page:Piccino and Other Child Stories (1897).djvu/158

146 tired, and I feel hot," she said; "are you tired, kitty? Isn't it nice under the rose-bush, and won't it be a beautiful place for a tea-party when all the white roses are out? Perhaps there will be some out to-morrow. We'll come in the morning and see!"

Perhaps she was more tired than she knew. I don't think she meant to go to sleep, but presently her head began to droop and her eyes to close, and in a little while she sank down softly and was quite gone.

I left her lap and crept up close to the breast of her little white frock, and curled up in her arm and lay and purred, and looked at her while she slept. I did so like to look at her. She was so pretty and pink and plump, and she had such a lot of soft curls. They were crushed under her warm cheek and scattered on the grass. I played with them a little while she lay there, but I did it very quietly, so that I should not disturb her.

She was lying under the white rose-bush still asleep, and I was curled up against her breast, watching her, when her mamma came out with her papa, and they found us.

"Oh, how pretty!" the mamma said. "What a lovely little picture! Betty and her kitten asleep under the white rose-bush, and just one rose watching over them. I wonder if Betty saw it before she dropped off. She has been