me
after supper.

Then Ma hurried to the pantry to open some of her best preserve-jars,
and Polly to the barn to milk the cows, and I was left to entertain the
lady.

I couldn't think how to, exactly, and I thought it wouldn't do for her
to talk, being still so pale; so I laid the photograph-album on the
corner of the table nearest to her, and asked her little girl if she
didn't want to go to the barn and see my four cunning little Maltese
kittens.

"Yes, I would, dear," said the lady. "Go with the little girl."

So she put her hand in mine, and we scampered down the hill to the barn
as tight as we could go.

We were not very long getting acquainted when we were alone together,
and the little girl talked as much as I did.

I asked her what her name was, and she said, "Jessie."

"That's a real pretty name," said I. "Mine's Kitty."

"Why, is it?" said she. "I've got a cousin Kitty. But she isn't near as
nice as _you_ are."

And with that we both laughed, and felt as if we had lived next door to
each other all our lives.

I showed her the four kittens, and she said they were perfectly lovely,
but liked most the one with a white breast and a sweet dot of a white
nose. I told her she might have it for hers as quick as it was old
enough to leave its mother. But she has never sent for it since. I guess
she must have forgotten.

When she had seen the guinea-pigs, and Tom's rabbits, and fed them all
they would eat, we clambered into the hay-mow, and had a fine time
playing on the hay, till the supper-horn blew.

There was no end of goodies for supper, but Jessie's Ma didn't eat
scarcely a thing. But she drank two tumblers of Daisy's milk, and said
she hadn't tasted anything so delicious in a year. But Jessie and I
could eat, and Tom too,--after he had spilt a cup of tea and a pitcher
of water, and knocked a piece of pie under the table. He said, when
Jessie and her Ma had gone, that the lady's black eyes "discombobolated"
him so that he had more than half a mind to dive under the table
himself.

Soon as we were through supper, Pa brought up the horses (which Tom had
driven to the barn, and watered and fed), for it was growing late, and
the lady wanted to be home before dark. I put on Jessie's hat for her,
and tried to straighten the crown, and pin on the long white feather,
that was broken in two in the middle.

"It's 'most spoilt," I said. "Isn't it a pity?"

"Poh! I don't care," said Jessie. "I've got thre