“I’ll tell you what we can do,” returned Betsy; “we can swap. I’ll furnish the pieces and you can furnish the filling. Aunt Emily is very nice about letting me have pieces; she likes to encourage me in doing fancy work,” Betsy laughed. “I could have gathered sweet things from our garden, too,” she went on, “but I didn’t think of it and it is too late now, so the best I can do is to supply the outsides while you supply the insides.”
“Oh, that’s lovely of you, Betsy,” responded Elizabeth appreciatively. “Of course it is too late to get garden things now, for the frost has nipped everything, and besides they have to be dried. Won’t it be something nice to look forward to for the next rainy day? We’ll go up into my playroom and make the bags; it will be quite light by the window, you know, even if it is in the attic. I speak to make the prettiest for Miss Jewett.”
“Oh dear,” responded Betsy disappointedly, “I was just going to say that myself; you always do get ahead of me, Elizabeth.”
“Why, no, I don’t, but—I suppose it wouldn’t do for each of us to give her one, would it? Even if they were different. Well, I will tell you what; if I think of anything just as nice I’ll agree to your having the prettiest piece and to giving that bag to Miss Jewett.”
“And if you don’t think of anything, what then?”
“Then maybe you will.”
“Now, Elizabeth, you know I am not anything like as clever as you about having ideas for such things.”
“You flatter me, your serene highness. All right, then I can ask Kath; she knows of lots of things to make and she will show me how when I tell her the good cause. I’ll give up the bag if you want it so much.”
“I suppose I am a mean, selfish worm,” sighed Betsy, “but it does go to the spot to have anything as nice as that for Miss Jewett, and besides she is to be my aunt, you know, and I have the right to give her the best.”
Elizabeth inwardly resented this, but there was no denying the fact, to her mind, and she could answer only: “Woe is me, that she is not to be mine, but you know something else; we’ll have the same brother and sister after awhile.”