till I should have thought she would
break it. And there she was, all cuddled down in a pile of hay, and the
dear little darling things all cuddled round her. I never saw anything
so perfectly dear! they were all blind, and bald all over, and pink, and
squealing like anything; you never _did_ see anything so lovely in all
your life, at least I never did. Well, she let me take them up, one by
one, old darling, though I could see that it made her nervous. Most of
them are like her, beautifully marked, with pink noses, and black ears,
and just the right blackness and tanness on them; but one is very queer,
great splotches of black on his nose and his hind quarters, and all the
rest of him white. So they named him "Magpie," right off; but I haven't
come to the names yet. He is not very pretty, but he looks _very_
bright, and I shouldn't wonder if he was terribly clever, to make up for
not being so handsome as the others. And the other different one is a
perfect beauty, though you may not think so when I tell you that he is
_blue_. Yes, truly blue; of course I don't mean sky blue, nor navy, but
the black is all mixed in through the white,--I can't explain to you
just how it is--but anyhow, at a little distance, he does truly and
honestly look blue. Well, so--I was the first to find them, so Father
said I might name them, but of course I wanted us all to do it together;
so we all thought, and each made a list. Oh, Peggy, we did want you; and
I wanted to wait till you could send your list too, but the others
thought you would not mind, and it is nicer to have them named quickly,
because then their names seem to belong to them more, and they look
like them. Perhaps, I mean, if you had been called something else till
you were two or three years old, you might not have been so just exactly
Peggy as you are, you dear old thing.'

"Perhaps I ought not to have read that," said Peggy, looking up with a
blush; "but it is as like Jean as I am like Peggy, if I am like it,
whatever it is."

"You certainly are like 'it,'" said Gertrude, laughing, "and 'it'
certainly is a dear old thing. Go on, please. We are all longing to hear
the list."

Peggy threw her a kiss, and went on.

"'I will not give you all the lists, for that would take up all the rest
of my letter; but here is the one we finally made out. There are three
females, and five males, you know: _Cleopatra_, _Meg_ (Merrilies; that
was Flora's, because she is just reading "Guy M