CHAPTER III.
CHOOSING THE KITTEN.
In the morning two little girls, Anne and Rose, from the next farmhouse, came to ask for a kitten.
Aunt Abby said Julia must first choose her own.
The liveliest kitty had a black-and-white coat, with black cap and ears. Its clean white face and hands and feet pleased Julia so well, that she tied her red ribbon around its neck.
Anne and Rose were just as content with the gray ones the boys gave to them.
When they went away, each carried a kitten in her arms, and each very sweetly asked Julia to come to see them.
“We will,” said aunt Abby, “to see how the kittens like their new home.”
“Come here, Papa Cary,” this kind aunt said after breakfast, when he sat under the cherry-tree reading his newspaper; “come to my kitchen-door and see a pretty picture.”
Papa went with her, and saw his Julia trying to make the kitten love her.
She had a basin of new milk, of which kitty had been drinking. Now it was purring its thanks. Julia laid her fat cheek against its furry side to hear the purr-purring sound.
“Dear little kitty, you will love me, wont you? My dollies just lie still, and can’t love a bit. You nice, warm, live kitty, you wont let me be lonesome any more.”